Thoughts on the Exodus Story

I. Introduction

            The Exodus is the one event that defines the Israel nation more than any other. The Exodus marked the beginning of the Nation of Israel and prevented the Jewish religion from dying of assimilation into Egyptian society. Without the Exodus, none of the other holidays and festivals, including the High Holy Days, would even occur as there would be no Israelite Nation without the Exodus[1]. The Exodus may be the oldest historical event to be continually memorialized in Western tradition. In fact, the Exodus, and in particular the Sinai (or Horeb) event, might be considered the central event of the entire Hebrew Bible. The story of Exodus is the climax of the story that began in Genesis. Therefore, no review or study of the Hebrew Bible and Judaism is complete without a thorough consideration of the Exodus. As such, the next several essays will be devoted to the Exodus.

Before embarking on essays directed to specific issues associated with the Exodus story, it might be worthwhile to consider the story from a couple of different viewpoints and to consider several episodes and statements made in the story that are quite puzzling.

            With regard to the Exodus story, it should be noted that trying to authenticate it is extremely difficult at best[2]. Attempting to use archeological data, history keys or historical data and the like simply do not work[3]. Furthermore, there are many inconsistencies which simply cannot be overlooked (such as the fact that the book contends that six hundred thousand men exited Egypt, yet there is no record[4] of such a mass exodus and surely there would have been at least some mention of such a mass exodus when it is understood that six hundred thousand men represents at least one fourth of the total population of Egypt at the time[5] – surely there would have been some mention of such an event, yet there does not seem to be one[6]). However, if the story of Exodus is viewed in the context of the Jews’ journey with their god from individuals and clans to nationhood and the story of Exodus is viewed as a step along the way from the beginning to the time and space where the audience is at the time of the retelling of the story then it can be understood[7]. The Exodus story is intended to illustrate important principles which are the very basis of the overall journey and which have been made in other stories and in other contexts, but are made again in the Exodus story in a different context and setting (specifically in terms of a nation rather than in terms of an individual or an individual clan or family) to further illustrate, expand, extend and support the overarching themes of the Hebrew Bible. Because of this, perhaps we should overlook the inconsistencies between the Biblical account and the historical and archeological evidence as well as between the Biblical account and itself. Thus, while the many inconsistencies make it appear that the story was fabricated, in whole or in part or simply uses a distant, and perhaps unrelated, event as the basis for telling this story, and hence difficult, or impossible to settle on facts that everyone agrees to (as evidenced by the different conclusions regarding the date of the Exodus as well as the events of the story), what the story illustrates and its purpose are what count, not whether it is accurate, or even true.

It is often instructive to view the story through different lenses. This essay, along with the other essays in this section, attempts to do this.

II. Interpretations

            As discussed above, the story of Exodus begins where the story of Genesis leaves the Hebrew people in the land of Goshen, which was probably the area along the now extinct Pelusiac branch of the Nile, which is the easternmost branch of the Nile and which ended in an estuary located in the Sinai.   It is noted that this location because the marshes and salt-containing water of this area would have destroyed any records (on papyrus or even stone) long ago. This makes any historical ratification using direct evidence nearly impossible. This forces scholars to rely on indirect evidence or negative evidence.

This lack of direct proof has led to many interpretations of the story of Exodus[8] and some of those include:

            1. It happened exactly as reported in the Bible where after over four centuries of slavery, a war occurred between God and Pharaoh in which the final battle included the killing of the first born sons of all Egyptians, 600,000 Hebrew slave men fled Egypt in one night with the Egyptian army in hot pursuit. And the Egyptian army was destroyed at the Red Sea[9] through which the fleeing slaves escaped after the waters were parted.

            2. It did not happen as reported in the Bible. The report in the Bible was either

                (a) totally mythological and fictional[10] or

                (b) partially fictional[11] but based on factual events[12] or on mythical events or on legends, folklore, customs, etc[13]. all of which are amended, altered, expanded and rearranged to emphasize a point, theme or a lesson[14] (see below for a further discussion of how the events reported in the Bible for Exodus share motifs with actual events[15]).

This category might also include the possibility that the story included in today’s Bible is a conglomerate of several stories. For example, there are at least three, and perhaps four, versions of the story in our Bible: Chapter 14 is a prose account and may have been authored by the Yahwist (J) and Priestly (P) authors or it may be a combination of those authors’ stories and in which the cloud following the fleeing slaves hides them from Pharaoh’s army and a strong wind parts the waters of the sea which panics the soldiers who attempt to flee on the dried riverbed, and the returning waters drown them. Or the Priestly version in which the fleeing slaves are trapped between the soldiers and the sea and God instructs Moses to raise his staff over the waters and the waters part when he does so; the slaves pass through and when the soldiers follow, Moses drops his staff and the waters drown the soldiers. Or the version provided in the “Song of the Sea,” in which the Egyptian soldiers attempt to follow the fleeing slaves in boats and a storm comes up and sinks the boats and drowns the soldiers. With so many different versions, one has to wonder if any version is factual, or are they all actually based on some actual event which is being manipulated to make a point.

There is some authority for viewing the Biblical story of Exodus as being based a model of an actual migration out of Egypt. Based on historical records as well as other accounts by ancient historians, such as Josephus, Apion, Tacitus, Hecataeus, and others, as well as records of historical events occurring in Egypt, there is basis for assuming a migration out of Egypt that occurred between 750-700 B.C.E. In that migration, which likely was not a large migration, high priests of Amun were forced out of Thebes and led a group of followers out of Egypt into the hill country of the Southern Lavent. As discussed elsewhere, the religion surrounding Amun was a type of monotheistic religion. As also discussed elsewhere, the indigenous people living in that area at the time had some religion similar to monotheism. Perhaps that is why the emigrating Egyptians chose that geographic area feeling that the indigenous people would be receptive to their religion and way of life. Furthermore, the emigration of the followers of Amun because they were being persecuted for their religion fits the model of the Hebrew slaves being persecuted.

It seems plausible that the authors of the story of Exodus used the Egyptian migration of 750-700 B.C.E. as the model for their story. The dates which can be inferred from the Biblical text may not match this date range, but that would be because this is only a model and the story was written for another purpose.

            3. Some authorities[16] rationalize the inconsistencies associated with the assertion that a large number of people exited Egypt at once and were slaves for four hundred years yet remained true to the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by viewing the Exodus as continuing to the First Temple period when the population of Israel was close to 600,000 men[17] whereby the Exodus begins in Egypt and continues to the time of the reading, with the first reading occurring during the First Temple period which was some four hundred years after Jacob and his clan entered Egypt. This may have been the genesis of the concept of Passover where the participants in the ceremony are instructed to visualize themselves as being part of the Exodus, because, the original audience was, in fact, actually considered part of the Exodus.

            4. The reporting of the events that occurred at the Red Sea in the story of Exodus illustrate the reason that some doubt the historical accuracy of the account and view the story as a theocentric account intended to move the overall story along and to illustrate the initial contact between the nation of Israel and it god. This miraculous escape from Pharaoh’s army is reported in at least three, and possibly four, different versions in chapters 14-15 of Exodus. Chapter 14 is a prose account of the rescue in which when the army reaches the fleeing slaves, a cloud that has been leading the fleeing slaves moves to cover them in darkness and conceals them. That night a strong east wind spring up and lays bare a dry sea bed. Yahweh causes panic among the Egyptian chariot force. When they attempt to flee, the waters return and drown the Egyptians. There is no description of the actual crossing of the dry seabed. Another account has the fleeing slaves trapped by the army at the waters of the sea. The people cry out to God, and God instructs Moses to raise his staff and part the waters for a path for the slaves to flee across the sea. Once the slaves have crossed, Moses moves the staff and the waters cascade over the army drowning them. A third version of the story appears in the “Song of the Sea” In this version, a detachment of Egyptian soldiers attempts to follow the fleeing slaves in one or more boats across one of the lakes along the Sinai frontier. A storm comes up and sinks the boats thus drowning the Egyptian soldiers (see Ex 15:5 where the soldiers are described as sinking like stones, and in Ex 14:30 where the rescued slaves observe the bodies of the drowned soldiers washed up on the seashore the next morning.). It might be noted that according to historical and archeological records, the Egyptian army had many outposts around the Red Sea. Therefore, even though the fleeing slaves crossed the Red Sea, they would not have escaped the Egyptian army as they would have encountered further Egyptians on the other side of the sea.

            5. In all cases, the story is intended to continue the theocentered story of how the current audience arrived at their current time and place with the guidance and assistance of their god. Regardless of whether the story is factual, based on facts, uses facts to emphasize the point of the story, or is entirely fictional, the story is used by all Jews as the beginning of the nation of Israel. That is the key element of the story of Exodus[18]. This thought will be further developed later in this essay.

            6. As discussed elsewhere, 600,000 men represents as much as one-fourth of the total population of Egypt at that time; however, there are no records of such a mass exodus, especially since it is reported in the Bible that the exodus occurred in a single night[19]. It is difficult to believe that such a catastrophic event as the loss of one-fourth of the total population is not reported anywhere. Furthermore, it is difficult to believe that so many people would be able to leave a country in a single night (but we might be talking about miracles here). Furthermore, it is difficult to believe that the Hebrew slaves multiplied from the tribe of Jacob (even if the overall Jacob tribe was fairly large as seems to be the case based on the account of what Levi and Simeon were able to achieve when they destroyed every male in the large city of Shechem, which seems to imply that the tribes of Levi and Simeon were fairly large) to 600,000 men who were loyal enough to the religion to be willing to leave their homes, even in four hundred years, especially under the harsh conditions of slavery[20].

            Furthermore, there does not seem to be any record of a group of people in Egypt who worshipped Yahweh, let alone a group of this size. Still further, there is no record of a sudden change in religion of the people who lived in the Hill country of the Southern Levant at this time, and surely an influx of such people as large as this would have caused a significant cultural and religious upheaval in thecultural and religious practices of the indigineous population. Since there does not seem to be any record or evidence of these results, it can be concluded that the group that did immigrate was not as large and significant as alleged in the Bible[21].

It should be noted that there are many events related in the Bible that are as miraculous as one-fourth of the Egyptian population leaving in a single night as is alleged to have occurred in the Exodus Story. For example, how did Noah get two of every animal on his forty-cubit ark? And how did he maintain all those animals for forty days and forty nights? How could all of thse people and animals wander in the desert for forty years and not leave any evidence, either bones or evidence of an effect on the desert ecosystem, or evidence in the towns we are told they visited. Yet no such evidence has been found despite decades of concentrated research by archeologists using the latest scientific techniques. This is miraculous. So, the Exodus could have been a miracle as well. However, for the sake of this investigation, miracles will not be considered. Accordingly, the Biblical account of Exodus needs to be re-visited.

            7. Archeologists have so far failed to find any evidence that will stand up to scientific investigation of many, if not all, the events related in the story of Exodus. The most prominent of this lack is the exact location of Mt. Sinai, the mountain of God, where the fleeing slaves became a nation under their God.

            For example, the actual route taken is very problematic to define. Many places identified in the Bible are not found, and cannot be positively identified, by archaeologists. For example, the wilderness of Shur into which the people went after escape is not determined; the site Marah cannot be defined; the geography of Horab is unclear, etc. In fact, the location of Mt. Sinai, or Horeb, itself, has not been definitively determined. Indeed, it may be totally impossible to identify the exact location of Mt. Sinai as mentioned in the story of Exodus. Archeologists have found no definitive evidence that would place this mountain near the Monastery of St. Catherine located at the foot of what is now called Jebel Musa as some have theorized, nor has evidence been found that would located it in Arabia, nor in Har Karkom in the Negev Desert (even though there are those that claim this site is the most likely to correspond to the Biblical Mt. Sinai), nor at Madian located in a large oasis near Jebel al-Lawz. This lends credence to the theory that the entire episode is fabricated, or at least partially fabricated, for effect. The vagueness might also be deliberate so as not to interfere with the actual physical sites of the religion, such as the Temple, or so as not to tie God down to any particular geographic location (or even path), or to make such a location or path a religious shrine to the exclusion of other shrines. Certainly, the lack of concrete evidence of a particular geographic structure should not detract from the importance of the Exodus narrative which lies in its moral code and in the role it has played in the development of both Israel the State and the Jewish religion. Perhaps the vagueness of the exact location, or even the existence of the mountain of God was deliberate by the authors of the Bible so people will be forced to accept the story on faith. Faith, after all, is the basis of any religion.

            Furthermore, archaeological evidence has been uncovered that the Sinai and the area surrounding the Red Sea was controlled by the Egyptians[22]. Hence, crossing the Red Sea would not have freed the Hebrew slaves from the Egyptian army.

III. Possible interpretations of the events of the Exodus which occurred in Egypt and immediately after the escape

    A. Introduction

            For the purposes of the following discussion, this essay will assume that the Exodus story as presented in the Bible is at least based on true stories and is at least partially factual[23]. The following discussions will assume that the story told in the Bible is at least partially true and will attempt to find practical and rational basis for the story and portions thereof as presented in the Bible.

1. Moses

The Biblical Moses may have been fashioned or modeled after a conglomerate of Egyptian figures, including Sargon the Great of Akkad (Sargon I) king of Mesopotamia. Furthermore, the name Moshe may have been derived from the Hebrew word Masha meaning “to draw out,” or may be a form of the name of the group being led (Libu, and/or Meshwesh, or Maasha[24]), or may have been selected because it sounds similar to the Egyptian names which include “MS” (which is vocalized as “mesh”) or MSS (which is vocalized as “meshes”), or because it can be linked to similar-sounding Hebrew words like Mashah which means “to anoint” or to mashiah which means “the anointed one”. Josephus , in his book The Antiquities of the Jews suggested that the name Moses came from the Egyptian name Mouses, which, in turn, was a two-part composite name consisting of the word Mo meaning “water” and the term uses which means “those who are saved.”  There are some who identify the Biblical Moses with someone who came from Lower Egypt, possibly during the 23^rd Dynasty, and was born in the mid-8^th century B.C.E[25] and was educated in the Egyptian religion, possibly as a priest. This model may even have served in the Egyptian military as a commander in the period leading up to and during the invasion of Egypt by the Nubians around 727 B.C.E.

        Furthermore, some historians have suggested that the name Moshe may have been a triple wordplay pun that linked the name Maasha of the Libyan-Egyptian people to the Hebrew verbs, mashah and meshitihu as well as the Egyptian noun, MSS (meshesh) which would allow the authors of the Bible to subtly weave an Egyptian historical thread into the Biblical Exodus story. Along these lines, one wonders who served as models for Aaron[26], Miriam[27], and Pharaoah’s daughter[28].

With regard to the Biblical Moses, at this point, it might be noted that since Moses had been raised as an Egyptian, it is likely that the slaves would not have trusted him. Merely because he states that God had instructed him to lead them out of Egypt simply would not have been enough to persuade the people to leave their homes and follow him. In fact, there may even have been tension between those slaves who wished to practice some form of monotheism as opposed to the religion of Egypt and those who practiced that Egyptian religion. As such, those monotheistic followers may even have believed that Moses, the Egyptian who had been raised in the Pharoah’s own home, was an agent provocateur intending to lead them to their deaths at the hands of the authorities. Of course, Moses would hesitate to take on this task when initially called at the Burning Bush[29].

    C. The plagues

            As further discussed below, each of the plagues takes some feature of Egyptian geography, climate, zoology, etc and turns it into strokes with which Yahweh punishes Pharaoh and his people for refusing to liberate the Hebrews. This story is intended to show Yahweh’s superiority over Egyptian gods because it is Yahweh controlling nature, and, hence the gods of others who worshiped gods of nature. This could be another instance of the Hebrew Bible taking events and retelling them in a way which makes a theological point.

            The authors of the Bible used this episode to continue their theocentered story of the people. As they did with other stories, they embellished and amended the story to fit their purposes. For example, instead of the plagues extending over many years, and perhaps, decades, and being usual for the time and place with the flooding of the Nile, the Bible’s authors compressed the time period and had the plagues issue from YHWH as proof of His superiority over any other god. The authors then had a mass exodus from Egypt to show how many people followed this god and to show His power. They even included a story of pursuit by the Egyptian army with its destruction at the hands of YHWH to further embellish the story. The authors probably chose Egypt because it was the most powerful nation in their world at that time. The story has the slaves defeat not only the army of Pharaoh, but Pharaoh himself. Defeat of the most powerful nation on earth at the hands of a band of weak slaves would clearly show the superiority of their god.

            This view fits with the theocentered theme and is amenable to the use made today where the participants in the Passover ceremony are asked to place themselves in the events of the Egyptian exodus. It is likely that an Exodus of some sort did occur. Perhaps not as dramatic as reported in the Bible, but sufficient to support the use made in the Bible and the use of the story in the Passover ceremony.

    D. The story may have occurred over many years[30]

            The Exodus story itself may actually have occurred over the many years that the Hebrews were in Egypt and the ten “plagues” were actual events that were negative for the Egyptians, and were blamed on the Hebrews (one of the first acts of antisemitism and blame shifting in order to relieve those in power (Pharaoh) from the responsibility of their decisions); and finally, when SIDS or the like took many of the male children in the royal household, the Hebrews were blamed and were expelled from Egypt (again, the first expulsion of the Jews and a foreshadowing of events to come – see Spain and Portugal later in history)[31]. For example (the following is based on The JPS Torah Commentary on Exodus by Nahum M. Sarna, (Philadelphia, PA, Jewish Publication Society, 1991, pp 38-53):

Plague	Explanation
Nile turning to blood	Heavy rains in Ethiopia caused red earth to fill the Nile feed waters.
Frogs	Fish in the Nile were putrefied due to the large amounts of dirt and silt (see above), so the frogs were forced onto land to seek food.
Vermin	Due to the flooding, there was a great deal of water on the land which would be a natural breeding ground from such vermin.
Swarms of Insects	Same reason as above.
Pestilence	No doubt the land was infested with dead insects, vermin, frogs and other such animals which contaminated the ground and the food which the Egyptian animals ate thereby infecting the animals with diseases such as anthrax.
Boils	The anthrax of the animals is likely to have been transmitted to the humans who tended them.
Hail	Hail can be found in intense thunderstorms which could be expected as the heavy rains from Ethiopia move through Egypt; the thunderstorm did not reach Goshen where the Israelites were because the thunderstorms were trapped in the narrow Nile valley.
Locusts	A natural event that occurs from time to time, and due to the year long time period could have occurred, especially in view of the wet, flooded nature of the land; the prevailing winds associated with the storms may have blown them in as well
Darkness	The storm winds, perhaps a sirocco wind, brings vast amounts of dust and sand and they often persist for several days, during which it is dark as the sun and sky are utterly blotted out[32]; the dust and sand would be even more intense due to the flooding and depositing of sand due to that flooding. Perhaps a solar eclipse occurred. It is also possible that an eclipse occurred.
Death of the First Born	This could have been caused by the choking effect of the sand and dust which would be felt by infants, perhaps the infants ate contaminated food which the Israelites did not eat due to dietary laws with the food being contaminated due to the anthrax or the like.[33]

            If one examines the plagues, there may be basis for concluding that the plagues could have occurred over several years or even several decades[34] as the Nile periodically acted up[35]. The Hebrew slaves could have left Egypt in groups over a period of many years which may have coincided with the time period of the plagues. In such a case, the drafters of the Hebrew Bible could have written the story of Exodus in a way that appears to conflate the time period as a literary plot and dramatic convenience. If the events did occur over a long time period, it would not be the last time the Jews were blamed for unpleasant, or even tragic, events. In such an interpretation, the Pharaoh’s army might have been pursuing the fleeing slaves (or the last of the slaves) for vengeance rather than trying to capture them to return them to Egypt. Of course, in either case, the Hebrew nation would have been destroyed – either through destruction at the hands of the army or through assimilation into Egyptian society upon return- before it ever had a chance to begin.

            Perhaps this is the reason it took so long to persuade Pharaoh to let the people go. There were alternate, and reasonable, explanations for each plague. Some plagues could be classified as mere magic tricks, some had reasonable physical and geographic explanations. Therefore, Pharaoh and his advisors could discount the event and not attribute it to the god of Moses. Perhaps God deliberately made the cause of the plagues murky so only the truly faithful will attribute the plagues to God and others will discount the cause or attribute it to a natural, and more accessible, reason.

Furthermore, at this time, Pharaoh was primarily the god Horus, the all-powerful owner of the soil and its resources, responsible for the overflow of the Nile, the rising of the sun, as well as the birth of living beings an plants. As discussed above, many of the plagues, alleged to have been caused by the god of the Hebrew slaves, could be traced to the overflow of the Nile. This raises several very interesting suggestions. First, by Moses alleging that the plagues were caused by his god, he was directly challenging the god Horus who the Egyptians believed to control such events. That implies these particular plagues were carefully selected so a direct challenge could be made. Second, it would be difficult for any member of Pharaoh’s administration to accept these plagues as being sent by the Hebrew god as that would be tantamount to rejecting Pharaoh’s status as a god. Thus, there would be great reluctance among the Pharaoh’s advisors to accept the allegation made by Moses. Third, there might even have been some thought that the plagues were actually being brought by the god Horus himself for reasons not being explained to the people. All this adds up to the significant reluctance of Pharaoh to accept the Hebrew god and to “harden his heart”.

Yet another question that occurs is: why is there ten plagues, not nine, or eleven or some other number? One possible answer is that the authors chose ten plagues that devastated the empire holding God’s chosen people from assuming their rightful role to “fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all living things that creep on earth.” (Gen 1:28); so the number of plagues reflected the ten divine utterances by which the world was created and ordered (Gen 1:3,6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, and 29).

            It is also possible that there was no single, mass, exodus from Egypt. Instead, it is possible that the exodus was really a trickle that occurred over many years. That is, a few people left, then several years later a few more left, then several years latter a few more left, and so forth[36]. Then, the authors of the portion of the Bible containing the Exodus story, altered and combined and amended the overall story to fit their narrative so that the trickle was written as a mass exodus to make and emphasize the author’s point that the Jewish nation exited Egypt in mass with the help and guidance of their god in order to establish a starting point for the theocentric story of how the audience got to where they are at the present time with the help of their god. The Exodus could have been what is termed as “durative event” that is one that occurred over many years. Exodus occurring as a durative event would also fit with the view that the plagues occurred over many years, and Pharaohs changed. Perhaps the trickle of people leaving Egypt reached a climax under Moses and then continued after Moses so the combined and total number of people leaving Egypt reached 600,000. Perhaps the Biblical authors were simply exaggerating in order to make their point.

            As is discussed elsewhere, one view of the plagues is that God is demonstrating His power to the slaves as much as He is demonstrating His power to the Egyptians. God has to demonstrate His power to the slaves in order to persuade them to follow Moses and leave their homes for the uncertain future in the desert based upon God’s promise of protection and deliverance to the Promised Land. People would understandably be skeptical of Moses since he is a criminal (he killed an Egyptian) who has been living outside of Egypt for years and has married a non-Israelite, who is not even fluent in their language and who has simply shown up out of the blue telling them to leave their homes and follow him into the desert because some entity claiming it was God told him to do this. Any reasonable person would be skeptical. However, with each passing plague, especially the plagues that spared the slaves (insects, darkness and death of the first born) it became clear that Moses was telling the truth which could be believed. Perhaps this is why Moses did not object when God told him that He would harden Pharaoah’s heart each time Moses asked for release of the people. Otherwise, Moses would simply have said something to the effect of “if you are planning to prevent Pharaoh from agreeing with me, until you are ready, don’t bother me until my arguments will be effective.”

This view of the plagues still does not sidestep the difficult conundrum of whether or not Pharaoh had free will or whether God usurped that free will. God was still using Pharaoh as a puppet to play out this drama. Some scholars have tried to split the difference by saying that Pharaoh was given free will in some instances (and hardens his own heart in those instances, see, for example, plagues 2, 4, and 7) but has God overriding that free will in other instances (and hardening Pharaoh’s heart in those instances, see, e.g., plagues 1, 6, and 8-10). However, this middle-of-the road approach still does not answer the question because in those instances that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, God has overridden Pharaoh’s free will.

Perhaps one approach to solving this conundrum is to simply say that Pharaoh, himself, hardened his own heart and the authors of the Bible attributed it to God hardening Pharaoh’s heart to move their overriding themes along. This approach seems especially applicable if the plague episode is viewed in the context of the overriding theme of repentance[37]. Since Pharaoh appeared to repent his transgression against the Hebrew slaves for the first nine plagues, God allowed Pharaoh to go unpunished by withdrawing the punishment represented by the previous plague. However, Pharaoh did not complete the process of repentance because as soon as the situation giving rise to the transgression arose again, he repeated the previous transgression of refusing to allow the Hebrew slaves to leave. Therefore, Pharaoh did not complete the process of repentence and God punished him again by bringing another plague upon Pharaoh and his country. Pharaoh never did complete the process of repentance because even after the severe plague (punishment) of the death of all Egyptian first borns, Pharaoh reneged on his promise and sent his army after the fleeing slaves. Of course, God wrought the ultimate punishment on Pharaoh for this act by drowning the entire army at the Red Sea.

Another approach follows from the discussion of God’s interference with man’s free will in the essay “God’s Ground Rules”. In this discussion, an exception to the rule that God cannot interfere with man’s exercise of his free will is when God’s entire experiement (the entire nation of His chosen people) is threatened with annhialiation. As discussed, in the case of the entire nation living among the Egyptians and being in danger of total assimilation into that society thereby killing the religion and thus the nation, God can and will interfere in such a way as to save the nation from disappearing. Thus, under this exception, God could control Pharaoh in a way calculated to save the nation from annhialiation through assimilation (which would also move the plot of the overriding theme of the prevention of assimilation along). In this instance, in addition to being required to save His experiment from total destruction as well as showing the power of and steps necessary for repentance, God’s control of Pharaoh served several additional purposes: it showed any skeptical Hebrew slaves that God was all-powerful and thus they could rely on Him after they left their homes and went into the desert; it showed any skeptics that God would punish transgressions against Him in the most severe manner, even it it meant punishing innocents (and thus punishing His own people if necessary); it proved that God was more powerful than any pagan god; and it proved that God could act outside the geographic territory of the Promised Land (and even in a land supposedly controlled by other gods).

The plague episode also confirms another of the Ground Rules, to wit: neither man nor God can predict the future. Since God could not predict the future and thus could not know how the Israelites would react or even if they would follow Moses out of Egypt, it took ten demonstrations for them to be convinced. God never gave up on these people, He kept providing repeated demonstrations until the people were finally convinced.

    E Slavery

            One great question is how did the descendants of Jacob fall from special favor of Pharaoh into slavery[38]?

            The question is answered by first understanding what the term “slavery” might have meant to the Bible’s authors.

            This “slavery” may not have been the type of slavery Americans know, that is, ownership of human beings, especially race-based ownership. It may have been closer to conscription of groups of people for forced labor on large public works. This might have been a form of corvée, or statute labor. In such a case, perhaps the Jews that were not conscripted were not included in the Exodus story related in the Bible and the entire Jewish nation was made up of only those people who had been conscripted at the time, some of whom may not even have been related to Jacob, but merely had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and were swept up in the conscription. Some “slaves” were really those who could not pay debts or had no source of income, or who were children who had been sold into slavery, some were infants who had been abandoned by their parents or even sold for food for their parents, some may have been kidnapped. It might be noted that the Egyptian demand for slaves was so great that some enterprising Egyptians even created special “houses of female settlement” where slaves could be bred. In some cases, there were rent-a-slave businesses for those Egyptians who could not afford to actually acquire a slave but need some of cheap labor for a day or two. There were all manner of people in Egypt whom we might consider to be slaves, but who may not have considered themselves “slaves” under the definition of “slavery” as they understood it. For purposes of this essay and to remain consistent with the terminology used in the Bible, the term “slavery” will be used.

            In the time between Jacob’s entry into Egypt and the time of the Exodus story, many of those descendants of Jacob, along with their families and friends who might have common beliefs with them, had assimilated into Egyptian society. As such, those people would become quite like the other members of Egyptian society. That is, some may have been wealthy, some may have been “middle class” and some may have been impoverished. Some would enter the trades, some would become professionals, and some would remain servants, some would have become manual laborers[39], and some would have been paupers. As was the case when there is a massive government project – and building pyramids would certainly fall within the definition of a massive government project – many citizens would seek to make a living off of such a project. In fact, it might even be viewed that the government actually created such projects to keep the citizens working (and paying taxes, see below).

            In regard to paying taxes, it might be considered that Joseph’s great contribution to Pharaoh was the nationalization of the farms during the seven fertile years so that the farmers really worked for Pharaoh and thus could be controlled by Pharaoh (as discussed in this essay, the term “Pharaoh” could be considered to be the same as our term “White House” to refer to a governmental bureaucratic set up) with the farmers paying taxes – see Gen 47:14-26. When the years of famine deprived the farmers of the fruit of their fields, they still had to pay taxes. They could not keep up with their tax bills because of the loss of income, and eventually the government would foreclose on the farms and the government eventually would actually own the land with the farmers being indentured to the government. The only way for these farmers to pay off their debt is to work on a government project – be “slaves[40]”. If the farmers went under, those who depended upon the farmers for their income, seed suppliers, farm workers, and other merchants, would also suffer and go into debt for their taxes and have to work for the government as “slaves.”  

As might be expected, the descendants of Jacob and their friends and followers would join the workforce and the suppliers and others associated with such a project. These people would be within the class of corvée.

            Over time, it would not be uncommon for such people to desire a greater stake and a better life and seek to join a following that promised them such a life upgrade. This would seem to be consistent with the story of Exodus discussed in this essay where the descendants of Jacob and others were close to abandoning their original religion due to assimilation and Moses recognized this and took steps to correct it. Moses used the temptation of a better life to entice these people into joining him and his Yahweh cult.

            Thus, the people were not “slaves” in the sense that we view the term, but were ordinary workers and ordinary members of Egyptian society when the story of Exodus begins. These people changed into the nascent Israeli nation and the story of “Let my People go” begins.

            The problem raised by the “All Vows” High Holy Days’ formula

            “All vows [], obligations, oaths, and anathemas, whether called ‘ḳonam,’ ‘ḳonas,’ or by any other name, which we may vow, or swear, or pledge, or whereby we may be bound, from this Day of Atonement until the next (whose happy coming we await), we do repent. May they be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, and void, and made of no effect; they shall not bind us nor have power over us. The vows shall not be reckoned vows; the obligations shall not be obligatory; nor the oaths be oaths.”

            “For the transgressions against God, the Day of Atonement atones; but for transgrsessions of one human being against another, the Day of Atonement does not atone until they have made peace with one another.”

            The above analysis of “slavery” raises a question. Using the above-discussed concept of slavery as it applies to the Hebrews of interest to the story of Exodus means that many of those “slaves” were really workers who may be working to pay off debts, or were hired for a job, or some other perfectly acceptable contract. Thus, these people were under contractual obligations. Under the basic “All Vows” formula recited by all Jews on the High Holy Days, specifically on the eve of Yom Kippur, Kol Nidre (which takes its name from the the All Vows formula), agreements between man and God can be abrogated, but agreements between men and men cannot be abrogated until the parties involved both agree. Thus, the question is raised, how can these contracted people walk out on their contracts with the Egyptians?

            One answer might be that the relationship between God and the Nation of Israel had not yet been established (it would not be established until Mt. Sinai). Certainly, the concept of the High Holy Days has not yet been shown to these people. Therefore, this rule did not yet apply. However, this is a flimsy excuse because the Bible tells us that this nation was always God’s chosen. So, it would stand to reason that they would be bound even without the formalities of Mt. Sinai.

            Another possible answer might include the forced nature of the contracts. Contracts of adhesion so to speak. Such contracts might be cancellable by the one upon whom it is forced. This might apply to some of the slaves, but not to all. The ones who voluntarily undertook the obligations should not be able to simply walk away. Perhaps some of these people were the ones who refused or at least balked at Moses’s urging to walk away.

            It should also be noted that this situation was not one of God interfering with the free will of humans or interfering in human affaiars because it is God instructing His intermediary, Moses, to lead those people who are willing to go. It is thus merely God suggesting a possible solution to a problem faced by humans. Maybe this is the answer to the question. God is merely suggesting that people break their contracts with other humans, God is not forcing them to do so. If they do so, it means that they violate their own oaths and ethics and should be punished for doing so (which may explain the suffering these people endured in the desert).

The chronology of Jacob’s entry into Egypt to the rise of Moses

            Using the chronology presented in the Bible, it can be shown that the descendants of Jacob had been “slaves” for about one generation when Moses received his “calling”. The purpose of this is to show that the Hebrew descendants of Jacob were like other common Egyptians at the time and were treated no differently than other common Egyptians at the time[41].

            Using the text:

            The lineage of Moses is given in Ex 6:14-20 as follows: Levi-Kohrath, – Amran  – Moses. 

            Because the text is vague or even omits certain details regarding timelines, certain assumptions must be made for this analysis.

Assumptions: Assume that

Joseph was about sixteen years old when he entered Egypt (anything older and he could have mounted a strong resistance to his brothers when they placed him in the well)

            Levi was older than Joseph

Each man had his child when he was about twenty years of age^[42].

            The text states that Joseph spent some time in the house of Potiphar where he was placed in charge of the household (Gen 30:4). One must assume that someone like Potiphar would not place a teenager in charge of his household, so it must be assumed that Joseph spent some years there. The Bible does not tell us how many years, so it might be assumed that Joseph was about 20-25 years old when he was thrown into prison.

            Again, the text does not tell us how long Joseph was in prison when he made his prophesy to the Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker. But the text does say that Joseph spent at least two more years in prison after this event (Gen 41:1). Therefore, assume that Joseph was 25-30 when he rose to power in Pharaoh’s court. Joseph predicted seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Therefore, it might be assumed that Joseph was approximately 40 – 45 years old when the fame began.  Since we assumed that Joseph was approximately sixteen when he initially entered Egypt, that means he had been in Egypt between 25 and 30 years when the famine began which (approximately) matches the time period from his entry into Egypt plus his time in Potiphar’s house plus his time in prison before his prophesy to the cupbearer plus his time in prison between this prophesy and his call from Pharaoh plus the seven years of plenty.

            It was during the seven years of plenty that Joseph nationalized the farms (Gen 41:47-49). Famine in Canaan drove Jacob to Egypt (Gen 41:56, 42:5). Therefore, the clan of Jacob entered Egypt during the seven years of famine. This would make Joseph between 40 and 45 when Jacob entered Egypt.

            Next, Levi was Joseph’s older brother, assume the age difference was ten years and had Kohrath at twenty, making Joseph ten years old when Kohrath was born (in Canaan). Then, Kohrath was twenty (and Levi 46) when he had Amran (Moses’s father), making Joseph thirty years old when Amran was born. Then, Amran had Moses when he was twenty (and Levi was 66), thereby making Joseph fifty years old when Moses was born. Since it could be assumed that the famine did not reach Jacob for some time (Gen 47:13), it could be assumed that Joseph was between 45 and 50 when Jacob initially entered Egypt. And the famine was still going on. This means that Joseph was still alive when Moses was born.

            In Gen 47:6, Pharaoh gives special favor to Jacob (because of Joseph’s position) in the land of Goshen. Pharaoh placed Jacob in charge of Pharaoh’s flocks (while this sounds special, it should be remembered that Pharaoh owned all the farms because Joseph had nationalized them so the farmers all worked for Pharaoh[43]). At any rate, this passage does show that Jacob enjoyed special attention from the Pharaoh.

            In Gen 47:28, we are told that Jacob lived seventeen years in Egypt. This would make Joseph nearly seventy when Jacob died. It would also make Moses nearly twenty when Jacob died. The famine was over by this time, but Pharaoh still owned all the farms and all the farmers worked for and at the pleasure of Pharaoh.

            We are also told that Joseph lived to be 110 (Gen 50:22), so Jacob and his clan overlapped Joseph’s life for another forty years. When Joseph died, Moses was between sixty and seventy years old. However, due to changing politics, it could be assumed that Joseph was not in power or even in a position of influence during all that time (in fact, in Ex 1:8, it is stated “A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.”) While Joseph was in a position of power and influence, Jacob and his clan were probably protected from the crushing tax consequences of the farm nationalization. Thus, the Hebrew nation probably did not fall into the clutches of the nationalization until Joseph fell out of power.

            The text does not give any good clues regarding how long Joseph retained sufficient power to protect Jacob from the taxes that drove other farmers to bankruptcy, but one can assume that since Joseph was only fifty or so when Jacob entered Egypt and thus in the prime of his service to Pharaoh, he would survive Egyptian politics for another decade or so. The next regime would not get around to Jacob for a while, so it might be assumed that Jacob was protected from the overburdening taxes for about 10 to 15 years after they entered Egypt. This would make Moses about twenty to thirty years old when the clan lost it protector and fell into the clutches of nationalization.

            It would take a few years for the descendants to become like all other Egyptians of the time – subservient to Pharaoh. Thus, when Moses was about 35 to 40, his relatives (the Hebrew nation descending from Jacob) were “slaves” to Pharaoh and the story of Exodus begins. The text does not say that these people enjoyed any special status but Joseph is still alive. Hence, it must be assumed that Joseph was out of power at this time.  At that age, Moses would have sufficient age to lead the clan and its followers.

            Thus, it can be assumed that in the seventeen years that Jacob resided in Egypt, his clan went from special status protected by Joseph to commoner status equal to all other Egyptians without the protection of anyone in Pharaoh’s government. Moses was in his prime and ready to lead the clan out of this predicament – the story of Exodus.

    F. A carefully planned escape

            Yet another view of the Exodus story is as follows. Immediately after the death of Joseph, a new Pharaoh took over and he placed the tribe of Jacob in slavery as was the custom for foreigners in Egypt. As will be discussed in greater detail below, these people were slaves for at least four generations, which is between eighty and one hundred years. During and over those 80-100 years, various “plagues” happened, although not at once but perhaps one ever few years. As discussed above, each of the “plagues” could be related to flooding of the Nile. Sometime during that time period, Moses discovered the YHWH-only cult, perhaps when he lived outside of Egypt. Moses then joined with his sister, Miriam[44], and they formed a YHWH-only cult among the slaves in Egypt[45]. As mentioned above, at various times, small groups of slaves left Egypt. A small group leaving Egypt would not raise any alarm and would probably go unreported. As would be usual for that time, these people would establish a religion and worship their own god. Whatever god they began worshiping may have morphed into a YHWH-only religion[46]. As mentioned above, Moses may have been exposed t this new religion at some time, and adopted it. When he, and perhaps his sister, converted the slaves living in Egypt to the new religion and led a group out of Egypt, this religion was the basis of the Jewish religion.

            During the time Moses[47] was leading the YHWH-only cult in Egypt, Moses anticipated (and perhaps desired) the ultimate expulsion of the Hebrews from Egypt[48] and was preparing for such an event by scouting the land and finding a country where his followers could survive after the expulsion. Perhaps it is for this reason, in many cases, Moses was often not the one “pleading with Pharaoh to “let my people go”, it was his brother Aaron (the Bible’s hindsight view of this states that Moses had a speech impediment due to an accident during his childhood where he placed a hot coal in his mouth)[49]. Perhaps the real reason for Aaron being the spokesman is that Moses was actually out of Egypt on the scouting missions[50]. The plagues lasted long enough for Moses to complete the scouting missions. According to Exodus 12:37, there would be some six hundred thousand people making this escape. Although this probably is a gross exaggeration, at that time there may have been many people that had to be moved. Moving these people would have required significant pre-planning by Moses. On these missions, he could have found people in the land that were hospitable to accepting the Hebrews and the best route to get there. Making such preparations, plans and arrangements, then carrying them out with a large number of people who were leaving their homes for an unknown journey through an unknown land clearly demonstrates that Moses was a brilliant and charismatic civil leader. As will be shown later in this essay, Moses was also a brilliant military leader[51].

            The escape route might have been chosen to avoid hostile tribes in Egypt as well as to avoid Egyptian fortresses[52] and required crossing the Sea of Reeds[53]. The body of water may have been in the Isthmus of Suez which extends from the Mediterranean to the head of the Gulf of Suez, and is an arm of the Red Sea[54]. This route would avoid the coastal road to Canaan which likely would have been heavily fortified with Egyptian strongholds, way stations and the like. Furthermore, the Bible reports an abrupt change of course at the edge of the wilderness (Ex 13:18), with the new course being more dangerous than the original course. Such a change of course to an apparently more dangerous course is likely to have been pre-planned and pre-scouted to throw any pursuers off course. It was probably on one of the scouting missions that Moses discovered the alternate route and decided to use it if the people were being pursued too closely. Other dangers on the route might have included dangers associated with marshy areas and the like, all of which would have been discovered on scouting missions. These scouting missions might also have discovered routes over sandy spits which pursuers on chariots could not use, or if they tried, would be engulfed by water, especially if there were storms occurring. A great military leader discovers primary routes, alternate routes and alternate-alternate routes to achieve his ultimate goals and be flexible enough to account for the vagaries of war.

            Moses may have figured that this crossing could only be undertaken in a certain season and at low tide when the water level was low enough to permit his people to wade through the sea. He arranged the escape so that the escaping people could take one of his pre-planned routes and still arrive at the sea when the water level was low enough to permit crossing on foot. Perhaps the rush to exit Egypt (which prevented the people from baking bread and allowing it to rise, hence the bread was unleavened) was because Moses knew how long it would take for the people to reach the Reed Sea and he wanted to be there at the lowest possible water level, so he had to rush the people out of Egypt to be sure they arrived at the shore of the Reed Sea at that time. The Egyptians pursued the Hebrews, but arrived at the shore of the Reed Sea after the water level had risen (perhaps because they followed the wrong route which was the route Moses wanted them to follow while he followed another route), and thus could not cross[55]. Thus, it might be concluded that the ultimate result of this escape occurred – not by Moses using God’s immediate power, but by using his own God-given imagination and free will. But it would be consistent with the theme of the story for the authors to attribute the results to God’s intervention: to further the theocentric theme, the drafters of this story of the Bible made the escape and crossing dramatic and with God’s help.

    G. The Pharaoh had spies among the Hebrew Slaves

            Also, one might wonder about the conversations between Moses and Pharaoh. It might be argued that the actual request from Moses to Pharaoh was not simply “Let my people go,” it was really (Exodus 5:1-3): “Moses and Aaron said to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Let my people go that they may celebrate a festival[56] for Me in the wilderness.’…Let us go, we pray, a distance of three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to the LORD our God, lest He strike us with pestilence or sword.” It appears that the Hebrews were simply asking for a three day holiday to pray[57] (see also Ex 3:18) and were not asking to be set free per se[58]. Why would the Pharaoh not grant such a simple request? Perhaps the main reason is that there were informers for Pharaoh in the midst and ranks of the Hebrews and Pharaoh was aware that the trip was not to celebrate a simple three days festival and then return, but a subterfuge for an ultimate escape. See, for example, Exodus 2:13-14: “When he (Moses) went out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting; so he said to the offender, “Why do you strike your fellow?” He retorted, “Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was frightened, and thought: Then the matter is known!” Compare 2:12 to 2:14. In 12, Moses “turned this way and that and, seeing no one about,…” and then in 14, the man Moses was seeking to stop fighting says: “…Do yo mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” There was only one other person around when Moses struck the Egyptian and that person the Hebrew being beaten by the Egyptian. Accordingly, the only way the man in v. 14 would have known about the killing is if the Hebrew being beaten had told him. This clearly shows that spying and tattling were beng practiced thus making Moses’s fears well founded. So that in v. 15 when it is stated “When Pharaoh learned of the matter, he sought to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh.” This seems to clearly indicate that there were informers among the Hebrews. Thus, Pharaoh probably knew the Hebrews were not going to simply go away for three days, pray and then return. He probably knew that the Hebrews planned to flee. Of course he would oppose this, as it would represent a loss of labor and may set a precedent for others to follow[59]. Thus, Pharaoh refused to let Moses’s people go. He would continue to refuse the repeated request if he believed that the “plagues” were natural occurrences associated with the Nile and not acts of a god, which is entirely possible since he probably grew up with such occurrences and thus they were not unusual to him (in fact, it is even possible that Pharaoh believed the occurrences were caused by his own god, or gods and not because the god of Moses caused them)[60]. Of course, he was disabused of this belief when the first born males died, which probably was not a usual occurrence.

            The known or suspected presence of informers among Moses’s flock might also explain the change of direction as the Hebrews fled the Egyptian army near the sea of Reeds (“So God led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds.” Ex 13:18). It may have been that only Moses and Aaron knew of the alternative route so the pursuing Egyptian army would be thrown into disarray because the intelligence they had received from their spies was different from what was actually occurring and, perhaps, even reach the shore of the sea at the exact wrong place so a high water level would drown them. Based on the intelligence that the Egyptian army may have had from their spies, the route taken might have been the exact wrong route. The false intelligence may even have been deliberately planted by Moses and Aaron to cause this disaster for the pursuing Egyptian army. This could be the first reported occurrence of a military secret, military disinformation, and a military feint. Thus, not only was Moses a great civilian organizer and leader, he was a brilliant military leader.

H.Analyses of the “Four Hundred (430?) Years[61]”

Before beginning this analysis, it should be remembered that if the story of Exodus is fictional, or even partially fictional, the determination of the time of the Exodus is really only a theoretical exercise. However, it will still be useful as a tool for placing the time for the Exodus as used by the Biblical authors. Since the historical and archeological evidence appears to point to a conclusion that an exodus from Egypt of hundreds of thousands of men cannot be supported, it is not possible to establish a “date” for such an exodus. What appears to be possible, however, is to establish a “date” used by the biblical authors as the model for their story. That is, the authors in constructing their story focused on a date and used (perhaps a date of some event in Egypt which could serve as a model for the biblical exodus story) that date as their date of the Exodus Story. Thus, much of what follows are discussions of efforts to establish the date used by the authors of the Bible for the Exodus Story in the Bible rather than efforts to establish a date for the Exodus.

            (1) Can slaves remember a history from four hundred years ago?

            One wonders how people who are slaves and who were born to slavery and whose families had been slaves for four hundred  years, would even be aware of traditions and teachings that were associated with an era that occurred four hundred years ago to people who were totally foreign to them, let alone want to carry on those traditions. In this case, the Jews leaving Egypt had supposedly been slaves for four hundred years. How does one who is a slave and who supposedly is a member of a people who have been slaves for four hundred years have any memory, or even inkling, of the teaching associated with people that were free, lived in another country, and lived so long ago that it is nearly incomprehensible? There may be an explanation.

            The Bible seems to be very careful about the accuracy of genealogies. Therefore, the search for an answer to this query might begin with an analysis of the genealogy stated in Exodus for Moses. If one reviews the genealogy presented in the Bible for Moses and his sister Miriam and his brother Aaron in Exodus 6:14-20, the following will be discovered: they were the children of Amran and Jochebed who was the son of Kohath who was the son of Levi. Kohath lived 133 years and Amran lived 137 years and Levi lived 137 years. It is possible that the stated life spans were quite inflated, so the more accurate answer will be found using generations as a measure. It is reasonable to use a time period of twenty to forty years for one generation[62]. Levi was one of Jacob’s children and one of Joseph’s brothers. Thus, Moses was only the fourth generation removed from Jacob (Levi was Moses’s great-grandfather, which means that Jacob was Moses’s great-great grandfather, with Moses being only five generations removed from Jacob). Four generations fits nicely with the prophecy made in Genesis 15:16[63] in which the Lord said to Abraham, “And they shall return here in the fourth generation.” If a generation is twenty to forty years, that means Moses was between eighty and one hundred sixty years removed from Jacob. Even accounting for the fact that Exodus 7: 7 states that Moses was 80 years old when he made his demands on Pharaoh, there still is around one hundred to one hundred eighty years between Jacob entering Egypt and Moses seeking to leave it since there will be some overlap between generations. Thus, using genealogy, the time of enslavement can be more accurately determined as being between eighty and one hundred years[64], with the initial part of the time being served by Jacob and his clan themselves during which time the details of the covenant would be retained by the very people charged with carrying out the covenant.

            Jacob and his sons initially lived in Egypt under a benevolent Pharaoh and were probably not slaves at that time. The fact that Pharaoh recognized the god of the Hebrews can be used as further proof of the “shortness” of the period of slavery. If the Hebrew nation would have been slaves for four hundred years, it does not appear likely that the Pharaoh would have recognized their god. In fact, the Hebrews themselves probably would have forgotten the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (which is the very problem of destruction of a religion through assimilation). The reason for this exercise is to support the assumption that the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt for far fewer than four hundred years, and probably for one hundred years or less. One hundred years, or less, is not sufficient time to forget the roots and teachings of the forefathers. However, as perhaps Moses recognized, one hundred years is sufficient for memory to begin to fade, and if the religion is not reinforced, the religion will be totally lost and forgotten.

            Even though the Bible states that the Jews were slaves for four hundred years, it can be argued that the four hundred year time is inflated and overstated by the Bible because of the epic tradition of overstating time periods and rounding them off (or from a view of the biblical authors that one generation is one hundred years, when, in fact, one generation is really only about twenty to twenty-five years); whereas, the Bible is very, very careful about being accurate on genealogies. Thus, due to its specificity, the time period associated with genealogy would appear to be more accurate than a time period associated with mere statements regarding time.

            As mentioned above, the reason for this exercise is to determine practical basis for the Exodus story as related in the Bible and thus validate it. One hundred years, or less (especially if the Patriarch himself was alive during the initial part of the time), is not sufficient time to forget the roots, teachings and God of the forefathers. One hundred years is short enough so there might be sufficient number of elders to keep these memories alive in the younger generations. However, a period longer than one hundred years or so may find those elders gone and/or their teachings lost or distorted beyond recognition.

            Perhaps Moses also recognized that because of their faded, but still present, memories, the people of his time would be receptive to a modern version of their religion. Moses may have been totally converted to Yahwehism while he was outside Egypt in a land where the people practiced Yahwehism. Moses may have returned from abroad a religious fanatic and brought this religion back with him to Egypt. Or, Moses may have been seeking a way to persuade the slaves to leave Egypt, and decided that religion and a faith in a single, powerful God would be just what he was looking for. The Yahweh-only religion would perfectly fit this criterion[65]. Moses sought out people who were willing to listen to him and he persuaded at least some of these people to follow him. It would seem that any people living under the conditions in Egypt at that time as described for the Hebrew slaves would have at least some people who would listen to a man claiming to have spoken to God, especially a god who they may have known about, and that god had promised to deliver them from their plight to freedom if they would follow Him through his representative, Moses. Even today, oppressed people are often willing to listen to someone who promises them a better life. That would seem to go double for the slaves in Egypt.

            Alternatively, perhaps Moses was a religious teacher trying to keep the religion alive and recognized that if the Jews remained in Egypt much longer, they would lose the religion. The religion being proposed by Moses was closely related to the one that the remembered and thus Moses’s teaching made sense and struck a cord with them. The religion they adopted under Moses was closely related to the religion that they knew: that of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (whom some of them may even have known personally). Moses tried to persuade Pharaoh to let the people leave to at least pray but with an ulterior motive of total escape. When the Jews exited Egypt under Moses they would probably still have at least some  memories of their traditions, practices and teachings which could be traced all the way back to Abraham. Thus, when the Jews became a nation during the Exodus period, they would have had ties to their roots that had been formed during the period of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is also noted that the Jews who were exiled from Jerusalem during the Babylonian exile were exiled for a comparable time period and they clearly retained their ties to their religion. Thus, it appears to be possible that the Jews who exited Egypt during the Exodus had memories of their roots and the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob whereby that religion could be continued.

            (2) Naham Sarna’s reasoning[66]

            Page 101:

“The point of all this is that the building of the Temple (Solomon’s Temple, dated about 900 B.C.E.) Is conceived as being the culmination of God’s great acts of redemption that began with the Exodus. …From the perspective of the biblical narrator, the time span involved in the Exodus events is therefore not restricted to the forty years of wilderness wonderings, but encompasses the period from Moses to Solomon. This is the Exodus era.”

            Further, according to Sarna, (page 14):  “To sum up: several diverse and variegated lines of evidence converge to make a very good case for placing the events of the Exodus within the thirteenth century B.C.E.” The elapsed time between 1300 B.C.E. and 900 B.C.E.: 400 years, the very figure used in the Bible for the time the Israelites spent in Egypt[67].

            Based on Sarna’s reasoning, it appears that the Exodus period extends to the time of David and Solomon. This places us in a position to rationalize the figure of four hundred years and make it consistent with the figures arrived at using genealogy.

            According to Sarna’s further statements, the exodus from Egypt can be placed at around 1250 – 1210 B.C.E[68]. If one traces back approximately one hundred years to Jacob from the 1250 B.C.E. date to account for the genealogy provided in Exodus between Jacob and Moses as discussed above, one arrives at a date of approximately 1350 – 1300 B.C.E. as the beginning of the enslavement of the Hebrews in Egypt and as the beginning of the Egyptian sojourn for these people.

            While Sarna states that the Exodus began at the exit of the people from Egypt, it might be argued that since the Jacob and his tribe were living outside their homeland and never intended to live in Egypt and only intended a sojourn there, the Exodus really began when they entered the land. The people of Egypt were all subject to the laws of Egypt which were religious in nature. Therefore, even if Jacob and his tribe lived under a benevolent Pharaoh, they were encumbered, if not enslaved, by these laws. Therefore, it might be possible to make a case for considering the entire time the Hebrews spent in Egypt being enslavement, in one form or another and the people were not entirely free until they had a Temple of their own, which never could have occurred while they were in Egypt.

            Sarna’s analysis seems to be confirmed by historical and archeological records. The thirteenth century B.C.E. was the last century of the Late Bronze Age which coincides with the New Kingdom or Empire Period of Egypt. The nineteenth dynasty came to power in 1305 B.C.E. with the first Pharaoh being Ramses I, his son, Seti I (1305-1290 B.C.E.) transferred the capital from Thebes to Avaris and, along with his son, Ramses II, undertook ambitious building programs. Such programs would require a huge commitment of labor, labor of the type which is perfect for “slaves” or corvée-type labor. Ramses II reigned from 1290 to 1244 B.C.E.. During that time, Egypt expanded its influence and during such expansion came into conflict with the Hittite Empire centered in “Anatolia (present-day Turkey). This conflict erupted into a war with the climax being at Kadesh (Southern Lebanon today) in 1285 B.C.E. Both sides claimed victory, which seems to indicate a questionable outcome. The war continued for several more years finally culminating in a treaty that set the Orontes River as the border between the two powers. After this, Ramses II and his son, Merneptah (1224-1211 B.C.E.) turned their attention to their building projects – which would employ further workers[69]. Merneptah had several military excursions and it is these military excursions that may have resulted in the military outposts which the fleeing slaves had to avoid while on their flight from Egypt. Because of this, some scholars use the dates of Mernepthah to date the Exodus. In fact, Mernepttah commemorated a victory with a stele, or stone memorial, with a lengthy inscription that references “Israel is laid to waste; his see is not.”and is dated around 1220 B.C..E. This date falls within the range of the above-discussed Sarna date of 1250 B.C.E. for the Exodus.

            Therefore, a case can be made that the Exodus really began in 1350- 1300 B.C.E. All dates are approximate of course, but the reasoning can be followed.

            The date attributed to the building of the First Temple is approximately 961-928 B.C.E[70]. The time between 1350 B.C.E. and 950 B.C.E. is four hundred years. Thus, if one considers the Exodus as beginning around 1350 – 1300 B.C.E. and continuing until 950 B.C.E., the figure presented in Exodus of four hundred years is consistent. As will be understood from the following discussion, this analysis also makes the figure of 600,000 men reasonable.

(3)Another view of the “four hundred year” time span.

In Exodus 20:5, it is stated “…For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.” As stated in Deuteronomy 6:5-7, “”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instruction with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up….”

  As evidenced by their actions, Jacob did not teach his children the ways of the Lord. This is especially evident in the way the brothers treated Joseph. As such, according to the prophecy stated in Ex 20:4, God would visit guilt of the parents upon the children….to the fourth generations.

  As was mentioned above, Moses was the fourth generation after Jacob. Prior to Moses, the three or four generations after Jacob were slaves in Egypt. As such, combining Deut 6:5-7 with Ex 20:5, the four generations that were slaves fulfilled the prophecy caused by Jacob’s failure, the punishment ended with Moses’s generation. All generations thereafter have had a new relationship with God (to the “thousandth generation”). Thus, the prophecy of Ex 20:5 when combined with the commandment of Deut 6:5-7 is fulfilled by causing Jacob’s family to suffer slavery for four generations. The four generation time span thus makes sense and is consistent with other commandments and prophecies in the Bible[71].

(4) Dates based on Egyptian sources[72]

First of all, as discussed in a footnote above, the Exodus is most likely an event that occurred over many years. Therefore, no exact date can be reliably identified for the Exodus related in the Bible. As such, there can be no time period reliably identified, and thus no way to determine how accurate the time period of “four hundred years” is. The durative event may have occurred somewhere between the 15^th and 12^th Centuries B.C.E. However, this is a very long period of time, nearly as long as the Bible claims for the entire enslavement. Therefore, a better idea of the exact date of the Biblical event must be determined. This section of the essay will discuss some thoughts on making this determination.

The Egyptians fought a famous battle with the Hittites in the 13^th Century B.C.E, specifically around 1273 B.C.E. There is some evidence that the Egyptians suffered a defeat in this battle and claim that there was a general uprising of Egyptian vassals and rulers that weakened the Egyptians and caused them to focus on certain revolts thereby creating an opportunity for some slaves to escape. The Moses peak of the durative Exodus event may have occurred at this time.

Another line of reasoning identifies the early 12^th century as the time of the Moses peak because both the Egyptian and Hittite empires were experiencing political collapses which provided an opportunity for small ethnic minorities who were being oppressed to escape.

Several Egyptian documents also point to the early 12^th Century time period. For example, The Leiden Papyrus 348 and the Pi-Ramesses (around 1279-1212 B.C.E.) describe a new capital called Pi-Ramesses which was built by Apriu, which some scholars identify as “Hebrews”.

  Another example is the Egyptian Military Road in Northern Sinai. As discussed in the section of this essay titled “A Carefully Planned Escape,” the people did not follow the most direct route (see Ex 13:17), but, instead, used a circuitous route mainly because the early scouting mission of Moses had identified Egyptian military outposts which had to be avoided. This military road was built in the 13^th Century by Pharaoh Seti I.

The Bible attributes the circuitous route to God: Ex 13:17 ”Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, althouth it was nearer; for God said, ‘The peoplemay have a change of heart when they see war, and rturn to Egypt.’ So God led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds.” The people had never been in the desert and thus it is likely that they would easily loose their sense of direction whereby the circuitous route would cause them to become lost. The possibility of being lost in the desert would totally discourage anyone from even thinking of trying to go back to Egypt.This interpretation is consistent with the idea that God does not know the mind of humans and cannot predict the future (see the essay “God’s Ground Rules”). If God knew the minds of the humans and/or could predict the future, He would not have needed the subterfuge of taking the fleeing slaves on a circuitous route to prevent them from running away from trouble. He would have known what to expect and taken steps to avoid the situation.

Yet another example is connected to the enigmatic passages in Exodus 3:21-22, 11:2, 12:35-36 which tell how God instructed the slaves to take “objects of silver and gold and clothing” from the Egyptians for their flight out of Egypt. The Elephantine Stele dates to the second year of Pharaoh Sethanakht’s rule in the second decade of the 12^th century B.C.E. This stele describes two warring Egyptian factions with one of the factions being loyal to Pharaoh and the other seeking to overthrow him. The uprising faction was bribed with “silver, gold and copper – the possessions of Egypt”. The Pharaoh foiled the uprising and drove the members of that faction out of Egypt, thus forcing them into a form of exodus. The parallel suggests that the story of Exodus had some basis in that stele story and thus was dated around that time.

It is also noted that the names of the three places that appear in the Biblical account of the Exodus (Pithom, Ramses and Yam Suph (Red sea or Reed Sea)  correspond to the Egyptian place names (Pi-Ramesse, Pi-Atum and Pa-Tjuf)  from the Ramesside Period (which is the 13^th– 11^th Centuries B.C.E.) and appear only from the Ramesside Period. Thus, the memories of the Biblical authors predate Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period, thus supporting a date of a 13^th century exodus.

Other Egyptian texts from the Ramesside period (1275 B.C.E.) describe brick making and note that some brick making teams fell short of their quota because of lack of straw. This parallels Ex 5:18 which notes that straw was withheld from the slaves making bricks.

(5) Dates based on climate data[73]

Archeologists have identified several periods of climate conditions, and this knowledge can be used to explain social conditions. There was a global wet phase from around 7500 B.C.E. to at least 3500 B.C.E. More specifically, The climate during the wet periods would support lakes, flooding, rivers[74], and certainly good farming leading to plenty of food. However, data shows that a significant dry period occurred sometime around between 2200 and 1900 B.C.E. with a prolonged draught around 2000-1500 B.C.E. If such a draught caused severe crop failure, such a draught would cause a famine and cause a significant migration around 2000 – 1900 B.C.E. If Jacob and his family were affected by such a famine, they would have moved to a more fertile land sometime in the 2000-1900 B.C.E. period.

  If Jacob moved to Egypt as reported by the Bible, around 1900 B.C.E, adding 400 years to that date places the Exodus around 1500 B.C.E. which would be fairly close to the 1300 B.C.E. time date discussed above, especially if one accounts for the fact that the Exodus portion of the Bible was written many years after the time identified in the Bible and the authors would be relying on their memories.

(6) Dates based on Rodger Roberts’s Analysis

            This section is based on the discussion presented by Rodger Roberts in his book The Fundamental Question: An Investigation into the Historicxal Origins of the Bible[75]. Roberts concludes that the date of the Exodus is between 1445 and 1210 B.C.E.

            Roberts first discusses the Hyksos expulstion from Egypt which is dated to have occurred around 1545 B.C.E. While this episode contained many events that correspond to the events recited in the Biblical story of Exodus,[76] there are differences between this event and the Biblical Exodus which are significant enough to rule it out as being the actual Exodus.[77] Roberts then discusses the invasion by the Sea Peoples as another indicum of the Exodus date. This episode is related in the Book of Numbers in which Balaam recites a poem that references an invasion of the sea people, which occurred beginning in the 12^th century B.C.E. and could be used to place the date of the conquest of Canaan around 1185 B.C.E. which provides a basis for dating the Exodus around that time.

            Roberts also analyzes the Exodus date in relation to the city of Rameses (Pi-Ramesses) since the Bible states that the Israelites built store houses in that city. Roberts attributes this city to Ramesses II, who reigned after 1279 B.C.E. and died about 1213 B.C. E. The Book of Exodus states that the events occurred after the death of the Pharaoh, so the date appeared to be after 1213 – 1203 B.C.E.

            Roberts also uses the extra-Biblical source, the Merneptah Stele which was erected by he Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah to commemorate his vicorites over neighboring countries, including Canaan. Roberts concludes that Merneptah reigned around 1208 B.C.E. Roberts uses this source to conclude that the conquest referenced in the Merneptah Stele occurred around 1211 B.C.E.

            Using all of these sources and analyses and combining them with the Biblical timeline from the birth of Abraham until the end of the Kingdom of Judah, Robets concludes that the Biblical Exodus occurred between 1445 and 1210 B.C.E. This time frame is consistent with the time frames discussed above for the Sarna analysis (1350 – 1300 B.C.E.) as well as the time period inferred from the dates of the Song of the Sea and the dates of the settlement of the hill country in Canaan (discussed in the essay on Monotheism). While the time period of over 200 years seems long, it is not unduly long with regard to Biblical time periods and dating based on the sources we have available to us.

            (7) Biblical Archaeological Society

            According toJohn J. Binson and David Livingston[78] , in recent decades an increasing number of scholars have recognized that if we accept the date of 1230–1220 B.C. for the Israelite entry into Canaan, we must reject the Biblical account of Israel’s conquest of Canaanite cities. This is because the Biblical account conflicts so strongly with the archaeological record. The Bible describes the Israelite conquest of Canaan at length and refers to a number of cities encountered by Joshua and his armies. In almost every case the archaeological evidence is inconsistent with the Biblical evidence—if we date the Israelite entry into Canaan to the date of 1230–1220 B.C.

            These authors then propose a solution to this inconsistency as being twofold: (1) a return to the Biblical date for the conquest of Canaan (i.e., shortly before 1400 B.C.), and (2) a lowering of the date for the end of the Middle Bronze Age, from 1550 B.C. to shortly before 1400 B.C. The result is that two events previously separated by centuries are brought together: the fall of Canaan’s MB II cities becomes the archaeological evidence for the conquest. These twin proposals create an almost perfect match between the archaeological evidence and the Biblical account.

            The authors suggest that the revised chronology they proposed does justice to both the Biblical picture of the conquest and the archaeological record. We offer it as an alternative to be considered and explored.

    I. 600,000 men[79]

            Naham Sarna provides an analysis of the four hundred year claim which seems to support the above analysis.

            Sarna, pages 94-102:

                We are now in a position to return to the problem of the six hundred thousand adult males who are said to have left Egypt. This population figure more or less represents the historic reality of the period of the united monarchy, the Period of David and Solomon. Just as a twentieth-century Christian or Muslim leader might declare of his respective coreligionists that they are all ‘children of Abraham,’ and just as a convert to Judaism may sincerely recite in his or her prayers the formula ‘Our God and God of our fathers,’ …so the Israelites at the time of the Temple building could see themselves as having come out of Egypt[80]. Viewed from perspective, the Exodus population loses its severity because the figure of six hundred thousand takes on quite a different connotation. It represents the population at the time of David and Solomon, which was seen to be the culmination of the Exodus era that began with the liberation from Egyptian slavery. This era constitutes, in the mind of the narrator, a continuum in which variation in time and content is effaced as being meaningless.

Thus, Sarna concludes, the figure of 600,000 men represents the population of united Judah and Israel at the time of Solomon’s Temple.

            Using the time of Solomon’s Temple as the base, the figures of 600,000 men and 400 years of enslavement are consistent[81].

Political explanation

            The Jews entered Egypt with a clan of some seventy people, yet in their time in Egypt, they increased their numbers to over 600,000 men – nearly a 10,000-fold increase. This occurred during a period of slavery and oppression and over a comparatively short period of time either four generation or four hundred years (which would seem to correspond to the Bible’s time period of one hundred years equaling one generation) which makes it somewhat difficult to believe thus creating the several explanations, such as the above explanation, or an explanation that God was behind the miracle. Perhaps there is yet another explanation for the figure of 600,000 which can better line up with the events reported in Exodus.

            While the number of purebred Jews may have increased as would be expected under such conditions, these people proselytized and recruited other, non-purebred, Egyptians to their ranks and perhaps to their religion (which may have been some form of Yahwehism that Moses later exploited and fleshed out). These initial recruits may have then recruited others so the “religion” of the Hebrew slaves spread through recruitment as well as reproduction. Over time, this could create a large population of believers and followers. This could even reach a level of 600,000.

            Such a large, and growing, population would represent a significant threat to Pharaoh, especially since this group did not believe Pharaoh was god. Hence, Pharaoh’s attempt to repress the “Hebrews” and not permit them to leave. They may even have represented a threat through insurrection.

    J. Artifacts

            It is also worthy to note that Israelite artifacts are practically the same as those of other local groups living at the time Joshua[82] and the Israelites are alleged in the Bible to have conquered the land. The significance of this is that it implies that Israel had not spent centuries enslaved in Egypt.

    K. Timing of the Exodus

            (1) Introduction

            There is yet a further question which arises with regard to the timing of the Exodus from Egypt. After so many years in slavery, why now? The Hebrews had been enslaved for many years prior to the time of Moses, why did they wait until Moses’s time to actually leave Egypt and their enslavement? Certainly, the Bible states that “A long time after that, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites were groaning under the bondage and cried out, and their cry for help from the bondage roes up to God.” Exodus 2:23. The long time after that refers to Moses’s flight from Egypt after he struck the Egyptian taskmaster and fled Egypt (Ex 2:11. 15) and was living in Midian with Zipporah[83] and had a son (Ex 2:16-22). Why did the story pick up so late? The people had been oppressed and enslaved long before these episodes. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to identify exactly when the events related in the Book of Exodus took place, if in the case of a fictional account by the Biblical authors for their purposes, they took place at all. As such, this portion of the essay will use Biblically-presented times.

            (2) Change in Pharaohs

            Perhaps the assertion that the people were crying out” now” could be tied to the death of the Pharaoh (Hizkuni) and the hope that amnesty would be granted in response to the installation of a new Pharaoh; or during the time of mourning for the Pharaoh the people had time to realize their status and requested help (Ha-Amek). Perhaps the people realized that their assimilation into Egyptian society was so great that the Pharaoh would no longer recognize their special status stemming from Jacob and thus wanted to leave.

            (3) The people were ready

            Following the line of reasoning suggested in the essay titled “ Another Interpretation of the Garden of Eden Story”, it might be reasoned that the people who ultimately would constitute the chosen people had to be ready for their task and had to develop sufficiently to carry out the task. God was waiting for them to be ready. In Genesis 15:13-14, in the Covenant of the Pieces, God specifically promises Abram, “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers  in a lnad not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth.” God had to wait until the people were a nation so He could rescue a nation and not just a bunch of people. Had the people assimilated into Egyptian society, God would have had nothing to rescue. So, God waited until the people proved they were a nation but had to act before they completely assimilated into Egyptian society. And, as in the Garden of Eden story, God had an alarm that would alert Him when the people were ready to fulfill the task He had in mind for them. In the Garden of Eden, it was the serpent who served as the alarm and alerted God when the humans demonstrated sufficient mental maturity to exercise their imaginations in a manner which would enable them to begin to fulfill the destiny of exercising dominion over the entities God created in Genesis. This demonstration occurred when Eve showed that she could conduct a conversation and answer a complex question that had been posed by the serpent. God waited until His alarm was triggered to act. In the situation of Exodus, the alarm was triggered when Moses resisted the oppression and killed the taskmaster and the women refused to kill the first-born sons of the Jews (selective infanticide). These acts signaled to God that the people were finally ready for their task. The people had developed a sense of justice and morality and thus were ready to spread God’s teachings to others (see the essay “The Hero Has 600,000 faces where the final step in the hero’s journey is to spread the runes of wisdom that he has gained on his journey to others). It also demonstrated to God that the people were willing to fight for what was morally right. Just like Eve’s act of discussing the situation with the serpent and then eating the forbidden fruit signaled God that the humans had evolved sufficiently to survive outside the Garden of Eden, the acts of disobedience by the midwives and Moses signaled to God that the people were finally ready to leave enslavement in Egypt and fulfill the responsibilities of being the chosen people.  Moses was selected to lead because he demonstrated his willingness to act and take a chance when he confronted the Egyptian taskmaster.

            An adjunct to this explanation is that the events detailed in chapters 3 and 4 of Exodus occurred at that time because the people were in danger of losing their religion through assimilation into Egyptian culture. The people had lived in Egypt for several generations, and it is possible that only a very few elders even remembered the original religion and the covenant (see the section discussing the meaning of the four hundred years). Once these elders died, there would be no “corporate memory” and the covenant which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had honored might be lost forever. God saw this and chose to act to prevent the total annhialiation of His chosen people through assimilation. Thus, God acted at this time. It is for this reason that Moses, in Ex 3:13 asks God His name. Either Moses has forgotten it, or the people have forgotten it or Moses is afraid that the people have forgotten it. Forgetting God’s name is the same thing as forgetting God, and forgetting their God would be a major step in assimilating into Egyptian culture and losing their tie to that God. Hence, the discussion in Ex 3:13-15 is the beginning of the dialogue between God and the people to renew and reassert the covenant between God and His chosen people so these chosen people do not disappear from mankind.

    L. God initially speaks to Moses through an intermediary

            In Ex 3:2, the initial contact between Moses and God is conducted by an angel: “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush.” Compare this to the initial contact between God and Abram, between God and Jacob, etc where God speaks to them directly at the initial contact. A question must be asked: why did God use an intermediary to initially contact Moses when God did not feel the need for an intermediary at the initial contacts of the other Patriarchs? Furthermore, doesn’t the use of an intermediary imply polytheism[84]?

            One possible answer seems to lie in the different circumstances. When initial contact is made with the Patriarchs, they are representing themselves, or their immediate clans at most. On the other hand, however, at this initial contact, Moses would be representing an entire Nation – a different matter altogether. Given the basic proposition of the essays in this work that God does not know the outcome, it would seem logical to assume that God would be wary of the human. This would follow the basic premise in which God tested Abram many times before He finally decided to establish a partnership (with the ultimate test being at Mt. Moriah). And that was merely a partnership with one man. Here it was to be a partnership with an entire nation.

            Then, compound this with the fact that Moses’s son was not even circumcised and Moses was married to a non-Jew. This would lead to further distrust of Moses. Given all this, it would be quite reasonable for God to be wary of the contact, especially the initial contact. Of course, once Moses clearly demonstrated his piety in the ensuing moments by turning aside, God saw that He could speak directly to him. Yet even then, God tested Moses by requiring him to follow special rituals, which Moses did. Thus, trust was established, and God could treat Moses like a partner (they argued regarding Moses’s representation and how it would be carried out…..partnership details).

            The explanation for the initial contact being made using an intermediary also seems to help explain another, even more puzzling, episode between God and Moses. In Exodus 4:24-26, God actually tries to kill Moses. Moses is saved only by the quick thinking of his wife, Zipporah, who circumcised their son. This episode seems to be explainable in light of the above explanation for the angel intermediary. God had trusted Moses, yet Moses had not lived up to his end of the bargain by fully accepting God as his partner as he had not gone through with the basic indicator of the partnership: circumcising his son. Seeing this, God sought to end the partnership. However, Zipporah satisfied this requirement and God allowed the partnership to continue.

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[1] This leads to a conclusion that Passover is the most important holiday, even more important than Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur, and perhaps as important as Shabbat since there would be no Shabbat if there were no Israel nation.

[2] See, for example, Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture and Geoscience Edited by Thomas E. Levy, Thomas Schneider and William H.C. Propp. Springer Cham Heidelberg New York 2013.

^[3] One problem that immediately occurs is that the Egyptian Pharaoh who “did not know Joseph” (Ex 1:8) is not named. This could be a literary device to demean that Pharaoh or to merely represent all oppressors; however, it is more likely that the name is omitted because the story is fictional. At any rate, without a name for a Pharaoh, it is quite difficult to place the story.

[4] However, there is a limit to what we can expect from the written record of ancient Egypt. Ninety-nine percent of the papyri produced there during the period in question have been lost, and none whatsoever has survived from the eastern Nile delta, the region where the Torah claims the Hebrew slaves resided. Furthermore, it would be highly unusual for any historian of that time to record an event that involved the embarrassment of Pharaoh, such as is related in the story of Exodus. Had any such document been prepared, it most likely would have been destroyed by Pharaoh’s people. Instead, we have to rely on monumental inscriptions, which, being mainly reports to the gods about royal achievements, are far from complete or reliable as historical records. They are more akin to modern-day résumés, and just as conspicuous for their failure to note setbacks of any kind.

[5] In fact, 600,000 men would actually translate to well over two million total individuals if one counts women, children and others. Such a huge mass of people surely would have been noticed by someone. Furthermore, such a huge mass of people and animals surely would have overwhelmed the ecosystem of the desert; the ecosystem of the desert certainly would contain some clues that it had been altered and these clues certainly would have been discovered by scientists studying that region. Yet there has been no reports of such discovery.

^[6] However, it might be possible that the actual exodus from Egypt occurred over a long period of time with less than all of the people leaving at each time. Thus, there would not have been a cataclysmic exodus and no note would have been taken of a trickle of leaving people. If this is the case, then the writer of the Exodus story telescoped the leaving into a single climax for dramatic purposes to emphasize the point of the story that God controlled the Exodus. This would also seem to explain the ambiguity of the escape route since people leaving at different times would likely take different routes. This also seems to fit with the concept of Pharaoh’s hardening of his heart. If the exodus occurred over many years, it is possible that different Pharaohs were confronted and each would react in his own way. That is why there was a need for many plagues: to persuade each Pharaoh to allow the people to leave Egypt to worship their god, and each Pharaoh would change his mind. See also, Abraham Malamat, “Let My People Go and Go and Go and Go and Go,” BAR, January/February 1998.

[7] The story of Exodus also marks a turning point in the transformation of God as envisioned by humans. Gods prior to Exodus, such as the Greek gods, and even the God of the Patriarchs, such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were very human (Abram’s God walked with him and talked with him). There was no distance between the gods and humans. The God of Moses was not human, in fact, this god actually insists that there be no comparison between Him and humans. That is why God required Moses to keep his distance and to hide his face, and no man could ever look upon God’s face. And no man could ever create a likeness of God. There was, for the first time, an unbreachable distance between man and God.

[8] See, for example, Biblical Archaeology Review 42:3, May/June 2016, “Exodus Evidence: An Egyptologist Looks at Biblical History”, “The Exodus: Fact or Fiction? Evidence of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt” by the Biblical Archeology Society Staff, 03/28/2018, “The Exodus from Egypt: Myth or Reality?” By Baruch Halpern,

^[9] This body of water is often referred to as the Sea of Reeds. The terms “Red Sea,” “Sea of Reeds,” and “Reed Sea” all refer to the same body of water and will be used interchangeably in this, and other essays of this section. The acual name of this body of water is a source of some consternation. The name varies from “Red Sea” to “Sea of Reeds” to “Yam Suf” depending on the source, which could be Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate,Yam Sof  by some scholars (such as Bernard Batto in “Red Sea or Reed Sea” BAR, July/August 1984, in which the sea Yam Sof is the sea at the end of the world and thus signals that the world was created again, this time using the Israel nation as the progenitor of the human race rather than Adam and Eve), etc.It should be noted that the literal translation from the Hebrew yam suf is “Sea of Reeds,” which almost certainly is not the Gulf of Arabia which is the modern Red Sea.

^[10] The nature of the story being partially or totally fictional may be the reason no specific name for God is provided at the Burning Bush. There were so many names for God, El Shaddai, Elohim, El Elyon,, etc, that the authors of the story could not decide on any particular name. Therefore, they did not use any name, opting instead to identify God with His functions and powers.

^[11] Perhaps borrowing from other stories that were known at the time, such as the story of Sargon of Agade, who was a ruler in the early third millennium B.C.E. The biblical account probably is a conflation of history and memory—a mixture of historical truth and fiction, composed of “authentic” historical details, folklore motifs, ethnic self-fashioning, ideological claims and narrative imagination. It may have been communicated orally and then in written texts and circulated in a wide discursive network. The Exodus story in the Bible probably depends in various ways on earlier discourses, both oral and written. It is the remembered past. Furthermore, for example, Moses’ name and his wife’s ethnicity are details that are unlikely to have been invented by tradition. His name is Egyptian, and his wife’s Midianite affiliation (a group later hated by the Israelites) seems too peculiar to have been invented by folklore or ideology. These items meet the test of “dissimilarity,” that is, they go against the grain of Israelite culture and tradition, and so may plausibly be regarded as accurate historical memories. In fact, the central event of Exodus, the giving of the law to Moses, is identified in the Book as occurring at Mt. Sinai. However, the location of Mt. Sinai as it is identified today stems from the fourth century when Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, declared it so and ordered  a chapel to be built on the site (Helana was also responsible for “identifying” other major holy sites, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem). Deuteronomy 33 places the mountain in Seir (another name for Edom). This mountain seems far from the path the escaping slaves should be taking to the Promised Land.

[12] As discussed by Naham Sarna and Hershel Shanks in their essay”Israel in Egypt, The Egyptian Sojourn and the Exodus” published in Ancient Israel edited by Hershel Shanks, published by the Biblical Archeological Society (Washington DC, 2011), there are several Egyptian texts that seem to corroborate some of the events related in the Book of Exodus thus showing that the story of the Exodus has at least some factual basis. They conclude their essay with a short statement about what facts we are confident of regarding the story of the Exodus: “We can confidently assert, however, that a group of people who later bcame Israel went down to Egypt from Canaan, eventually settling there. As some point they were conscripted in a corvée and were oppressed as foreigners. Some later, they or their descendants entered Canaan, where, joined by other peoples, they became Israel”. They then assert that these people must have had a leader of some sort, although this leader may not have been named Moses.

[13] The stories might also be based upon proto-Biblical literature that was created hundreds of years before, perhaps by the High Priests of Amun and their followers who initially immigrated to the Hill Country of the Levant from Egypt in order to consolidate and preserve the core beliefs and traditions of their religion in a consistent form to enable its doctrine to be spread uniformly throughout the country.

[14] For support for this view, note that a simple escape of slaves from slavery has been expanded in the Book of Exodus into a book that contains poems, law codes, religious rituals, codes and practices, administration practices, leadership practices, military tactics, foreign relations, architectural plans, rituals, survival techniques, and, of course, a tale of epic escape.

[15] Also see the discussion in the essay on Monotheism on the development of Yawah-only monotheism in the Hill Country of the Levant.

^[16] Principally, Naham Sarna, this is discussed in greater detail later in this essay.

[17] However, some recent archeologists, such as Hillel Geva of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Israel Exploration Society, estimate that the population of Jerusalem proper to be a mere few hundred at this time, five to seven hundred at most. By the end of the First Temple period (the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.), the walled city of Jerusalem covered 160 acres. By that time, settlement also extended northward outside the city walls, all of which expanded the city further. At its height, the population of Jerusalem at the end of the eighth century B.C.E., (well after the time discussed here of the first temple) according to Geva, was 8,000. As a result of the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib in 701 B.C.E., Jerusalem’s population declined to about 6,000, and so it remained until the Babylonians destroyed the city in 586 B.C.E. and forced much of its population into exile in Babylon.

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[18] In fact, it should be noted that the actual story of the nation only begins with the escape from Egypt, it continues with the sojourn in the desert where the people bonded into a nation, a stop at Mt. Sinai to formally bond with their god, and finally an entry into the land of Canaan and a combination with and/or a conquering of, the indigenous people of that land to form a nation in the land of Israel. Thus, it was a multiplicity of steps that finally led to the formation of a nation with a homeland, with the Exodus from slavery in Egypt being only the first step.

^[19] The closest to a record seems to be the victory hymn on a stele erected about 1204 B.C.E. by a pharaoh named Merneptah which states “I have decimated the people of Israel and put their children to death.” (ANET, 376-8; CoS, 41) which is at least a mention of Israel in the land of Canaan by a source outside of the Bible. But even here, there is no mention of a mass exodus out of Egypt or when these people entered the land of Canaan.

[20] Deuteronomy 10:22: “your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons in all; and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.”  Seventy to six hundred thousand (Ex 12:37)? However, even the number seventy could be questioned, see Gen 46:26-27.

[21] Actually, the number could be as few as under 10,000.

[22] Research conducted by Eliezer Oren between 1972 and 1982 and reported in a speech at the Royal Ontario Museum. At the time identified for the Biblical Exodus, Egypt controlled the Southern Levant and either Mitanni or Hittites controlled the Northern Levant.

^[23] See, Christine Hayes, “Introduction to the Bible” (New Haven, CT Yale University Press , 2012, paperback) page 100. The concept that the Exodus story in the Bible is merely based on some historic event will follow the general pattern of the Bible of using some historical event or some known story and modifying it to fit the general theme, purpose and objective of the authors. Thus, there may be some evidence which supports both a sojourn in Egypt by people who might be the ancestors of the biblical audience and the exodus of some (or even the same) people out of Egypt even though there is no record of a mass exodus of millions of people. Even without considering archealogical evidence, merely applying reasoning to the story indicates that there is at least some factual basis. While many peoples have traced their national origin to fictional events, all of these fictional histories begin with some heroic event or occurrence. What people would invent a national origin in slavery? Ignominious slavery at that.

[24] In this case, the leader of the group would have been named after his tribe of origin, namely, the particular Libyan group in the Nile delta known as the Maasha (Meshwesh) tribal group. Also, in this case, the leader of this group could have been linked to the priests of Amun in Thebes.

[25] There are no historical references to a Semitic leader by a name such as the Biblical Moses before the 4^th century B.C.E. The earliest extra-biblical reference to such a person start to occur in the writings of the 3^rd century B.C.E. historians.

[26] Rudamon/Araon?

[27] Meryam?

[28] Irbastnubneful/Nesiter-pauty?

[29] It should also be noted that there were others who were called by God and hesitated, or even refused, see, for example, Gideon; Ezekiel received his call while sitting among fellow exiles at the River Chebar (Ezek. 2:1–5). It so overwhelmed him that he left in bitterness and was unable to speak for seven days. 

[30] This would make it a “durative event” as opposed to a “punctual event”; a durative event occurs over many years and may have involved a plurality of exoduses that were so small in number that the Egyptian scribes took no notice of them; whereas, a punctual event occurs over a very short time period. The durative event may have peaked in the time of Moses with the authors of the Bible telescoping the durative event into a punctual event for the sake of drama. If the event was a durative event, the date assigned to the Exodus will be highly speculative.

[31] It might be noted that by comparing the chronology presented for Moses and Aaron in Exodus (see, e.g., 7:7) to the chronology presented for Moses and Aaron in Numbers (see, e.g., Num 33:29) and in Deuteronomy (see., e.g., Deut 34:7), it can be calculated that all of the events from Numbers 33 onward through the end of Deuteronomy, took place during only one year (the last year of Moses’s life).

^[32] It could also be a solar eclipse which would be especially significant to Egyptians who worshiped the Sun.

^[33] It is noteworthy that Moses and Aaron seem to have convinced everyone except Pharaoh that the Hebrews should be permitted to leave. However, this action, taken by God and not by Moses or Aaron, affected everyone (except, of course the Hebrews). This is thus an instance of the innocent being punished along with, and in this case, because of, the wicked. God did not even seek ten, or even one, innocent men, He simply punished everyone, including those that could not have known better (could” not know their right hand from their left”, the animals (see Jonah 4:11).

[34] As discussed elsewhere, the term Pharaoh may actually describe a branch of Egyptian government, like the term White House describes the administrative branch of US Government. As such, perhaps Moses and Aaron had to work their way up several layers of bureaucracy before ultimately gaining a hearing with the actual leader, or Pharaoh. Thus, it would take ever-increasing levels of “miracles” to impress ever-increasing levels of bureaucrats to kick the problem up to the next level. This would take several years at best and ever-increasing levels of “persuasion” with the ultimate level of “persuasion” (beginning with a simple magic trick of  turning of a staff into a snake and escalating in seriousness, complexity, intensity, and devastation and ending with an apocryphal killing of Egyptian first born males) being reserved for the last step, persuading Pharaoh himself that his people were in danger.

[35] This view seems to be supported in the literature. For example, In Pentateuch and Haftorahs, Rabbi J.H. Hertz suggests that the miracles were actually natural events.

[36] In fact, there might even have been exits and returns. Those exiting may have been exposed to the Yahweh-only cult located outside Egypt, and then brought back those beliefs to Egypt when they returned thereby exposing those who remained in Egypt to this new religion. Also, perhaps, those immigrants entering Egypt, either in search of work of food, may have imported the Yahweh-only religion to those living in Egypt. Thus, the Yahweh-only religion would build over time and gain recruits and strength, especially if those converting in Egypt attempted to convert others. Over the time discussed for the occurrence of the plagues, this cult could grow to large numbers.

[37] As discussed elsewhere, the process of repentance includes the following steps: one makes a mistake, fully accepts that he made a mistake and accepts and understands the consequences of the mistake, then understands what he did and changes so the mistake is not repeated if the situation arises again.

[38] The Hebrew “slaves” are generally depicted as working on the pyramids of Giza. However, the last of the Giza pyramids was completed around 2500 B.C.E., long before the events related in the story of Exodus took place.

[39] See, the painting “The Stonecutters” by Gustave Courbet for an example of “slavery” in the common man.

[40] “And when the money gave out in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, ‘Give us bread, lest we die before your very eyes; for the money is gone!’ And Joseph said, ‘Bring your livestock, and I will sell to you against your livestock, if the money is gone.’ So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, for the stocks of sheep and cattle, and the asses; thus he provided them with bread that year in exchange for all their livestock. And when that year ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, ‘We cannot hide from my lord that, with all the money and animals consigned to my lord, nothing is left at my lord’s disposal save our persons and our farmland. Let us not perish before your eyes, both we and our land. Take us and our land in exchange for bread, and we with our land will be serfs to Pharaoh;’” “”So Joseph gained possession of all the farm land of Egypt for Pharaoh, every Egyptian having sold his field because the famine was too much for them; thus the land passed over to Pharaoh. And he removed the population town by town from one end of Egypt’s border to the other.” “Then Joseph said to the people, ‘Whereas I have this day acquired you and your land for Pharaoh here is seed for you to sow the land. And when harvest comes, you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh.’” Genesis 47:13-26.

[41] Certainly, the order to murder the first born sons of the Hebrews seems to be an order of magnitude greater than the treatment of common people, but considering the above discussion of a growing number of dissidents, it would seem logical for a despot like the Pharaoh to take such drastic action against the dissidents and to show anybody thinking about joining them what their fate will be. Also, the increasing of burdens in response to a request to leave also seems to be an expected response to such a request (Ex 5: 6-23). This would seem to be similar to actions generally taken by despots and dictators against those who defy him or his rule.

[42] . It is reasonable to use a time period of twenty to forty years for one generation. See, Generations by William Strauss & Neil Howe, (New York, NY  William Morrow and Company, Inc 1991, paperback). See also, Exploring Exodus by Nahum M. Sarna, (New York, NY Schocken Books 1996), page 8.

[43] As reported in Gen 47:14-17, Joseph “sold” means for the people to meet their current and future needs in return for their giving up their independence: rations (current needs) for money (v 14); bread for livestock (current needs) (v 15); seed for land (future needs) (v 18). The bargain includes allowing the people to retain four-fifths of the havest while only giving one-fifthe to Pharaoh (v 24). Thus, it appears that while Joseph did, indeed, nationalize the farms, he was fair and equitable with the take-over.

^[44] As discussed in the essay “The People Versus Pharaoh,” Miriam may have been the driving force behind the slave rebellion and Exodus. In fact, it may have been Miriam who recruited her younger brother, Moses, to the cause. As discussed in that essay, “Miriam may have been the original anarchist.”

^[45] For more on Miriam, see the essay “Miriam”.

^[46] For yet another view of the evolution of the Israelite religion, see Christine Hayes, “Introduction to the Bible” (, New Haven, Yale University Press 2012) pages 109-111 where Mark Smith’s findings and conclusions are reported in which Israelite monotheism is a “process of convergence and differentiation” by which various deities and/or some of their features are coalesced into Yahweh.

[47] See, also, “Who Was Moses? Was He More than an Exodus Hero?”Discovering the Biblical Moses, Biblical Archaeology Society Staff, 03/13/2018.

^[48] This would be the first of many cases where the Jews were expelled from a country.

^[49] Perhaps the “speech impediment” is reallysimply another way of characterizing an inadequacy in public speaking.

[50] It might also be noted that on several occasions, when Moses and Aaron had agreed to lift a plague, they left the room (see for example, Ex 8:8, 26, 33, 10:18). What Moses said in these “prayers” is not recorded. They might have left in order to continue planning the escape route.

[51] The brilliance of Moses as a military commander may also explain why Moses did not request God’s help in defeating the Amalkeites in Ex 17:8-13, Moses did not need it.Furthermore, there may be some , such as Artapanus, who claim that the man used by the Biblical authors as a model for Moses was Prince Mousos, a leader in the Egyptian army during the Etheopian invasion of Egypt.

[52] After expulsion of the Hykosos from Egypt, Egypt set up a colony in the Southern Levant to protect against a future invasion of Egypt. The Egyptian presence in the Southern Levant lasted from about 1545 B.C.E. to about 1150 B.C.E., which would be a time period covering the time attributed to the Exodus.

^[53] Exodus 13:17: “Now, when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for god said, ‘ The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.’ So God led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds.” This also seems to support the theory that not all of the people leaving Egypt were totally convinced that this was the right thing to do. God had to exert a “strong hand” in order to keep them focused on leaving and not returning. In fact, there are many times that the people wish to return to Egypt. In fact, the people even get sarcastic with God when they say in Exodus 14:11, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness?”. The people needed constant herding and discipline – a “strong hand”.

^[54] This discussion of the route from Egypt followed by Moses is based on the discussion of Nahum M. Sarna in his book “Exploring Exodus”, published in 1996 by Schocken Books of New York, pages 103-116.

^[55] This situation might be analogous to the situation in Act IV of Shakespeare’s “Henry V” at the Battle on St. Crispin’s Day where a few Englishmen defeated a much larger French army, because of the English Longbows but also because the French were wearing heavy armor and became bogged down in the mud and thus became sitting targets for the English archers. The analogy ends at the mud however, as there is some evidence that the English took French captives and then murdered them, which is clearly not the case in the story of the fleeing Hebrew slaves vis á vis the pursuing Egyptian army.

^[56] The festival that we now call Passover was a pastoral festival which celebrated the Spring yearly and may have actually pre-dated the time of Exodus, and may have been the festival mentioned in Exodus 5:1 as the reason Moses was asking the Pharaoh to let the people go to celebrate a festival in the desert.

^[57] Interestingly enough, with all the fuss being made about being allowed to sacrifice, the first recorded sacrifice for the freed people is Jethro’s “burnt offering” detailed in Ex 18:12. Jethro is a Midianite priest and Moses’s father-in-law. Nevertheless, it seems astonishing that the people would not have made this sacrifice immediately upon gaining their freedom since it seemed so important to them prior to their leaving Egypt. Certainly, one would expect the people themselves to conduct the ceremony rather than wait for an outsider to do it.

1. [58] But, in 50:5, Joseph promises to return after interring his father, and in 50:6, Pharaoh accepts this promise. Compare that to the Pharaoh’s reaction to Moses’s “let my people go that they may celebrate a festival for Me in the wilderness” in Exodus 5:1. The Exodus statement contained no promise of return.

[59] At this time, Egypt may have been the largest user of slaves in the Near East and may have been more dependent on slave labor than any other country in the Near East. As such, any loss of slaves, or particularly, a precedent for allowing slaves to leave, would have been totally unacceptable to the Pharaoh.

^[60] As will be discussed in the essay “People versus Pharaoh, the plagues can be interpreted to show (Moses’s) God’s credibility and prove that this god was worthy of these people leaving their homes to follow and worship. It is possible that Moses was the one making this interpretation to persuade the people to follow him.

[61] As is discussed in this essay, the biblical chronology itself is problematic and internally inconsistent even if one counts forward or backward from dates which seem to be factual (such as might be found in the book of Kings). Using the Biblical text, the sojourn in Egypt can be anywhere from one generation to over four hundrend years. The problems of dating the Exodus are also discussed in the essay “Israel in Egypt” by Sarna and Shanks in Ancient Israel edited by Hershel Shanks, published by the Biblical Archeological Society (Washington DC, 2011). This essay concludes that the thirteenth century B.C.E. is for the Exodus is probably the correct date, which agrees with the conclusion suggested herein.

^[62] See, Generations by William Strauss & Neil Howe, (New York, NY  William Morrow and Company, Inc 1991, paperback). See also, Exploring Exodus by Nahum M. Sarna, (New York, NY Schocken Books 1996), page 8.

[63] The myth covenant described in Genesis 15, appears to be mysterious; however, it was used in Jerusalem in the sixth century B.C.E. as a solemn rite. During Nebuchadrezzar’s siege, King Zedekiah and his couriers swore they would free their Hebrew bondmen in accordance with the law. However, they failed to do so when the siege was temporarily lifted. Jeremiah then reminded them of the oath sworn by their ancestors to release every Hebrew bondman after six years of service. This covenant had been neglected for generations but had been recently renewed in the Temple by priests, leaders and freemen of Judah who passed between the severe quarters of a calf. It is also noted that the carrion birds signify devine punishment of transgressors. The rite can thus be interpreted as saying: “unless I tread faithfully along a narrow lane of truth, let my body be cut in two like these carcasses; and let carrion birds and beasts mangle it.” This cutting of carcasses finds an echo in the story of Saul who cut a yoke of oxen in pieces and sent them through the land with the message ”either come to fight behind Saul and Samuel, or be treated like these oxen!” (1 Samuel 11:7).

[64] According to Seder Olam Rabbah Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1998), pp 37-41, and Numbers 26:59, the enslavement in Egypt lasted between 86-116 years.

^[65] Moses may or may not have actually believed in the religion, but used it to achieve his end of being a leader and leading people out of slavery to freedom. Moses was probably not the first, and certainly was not the last, person to use religion to achieve his ends.

^[66] Exploring Exodus, by Nahum M. Sarna, (New York, NY  Schocken Books 1996).

^[67] For another plausible explanation see, Christine Hayes, Introduction to the Bible (New Haven, CT Yale University Press 2012, paperback) pages 98-101. Other methods of calculating chronological events might yield other dates, see, for example, “Table of Chronology of The Bible and the discussion of each of the Patriarchs in The Revell Bible Dictionary at pages 215-217, 1051, 1073, 1074 and 1080 as well as The New Bible Dictionary.

[68] This date is consistent with the dating of the Song of the Sea. As stated by Nahum Sarna and Hershael Shanks in their paper “Israel in Egypt, The Egyptian Sojourn and the Exodus” included in the book Ancient Israel, published by the Biblical Archealogical Societey (2011, Washington, DC), with regard to the Song of the Sea, “In the case of the Song of the Sea, these textual considerations, and the historical and cultural context presented in the hymn, suggest that it was first composed between 1125 and 1000 B.C.E., perhaps only a generation or two after the miraculous defeat of the Egyptians had occurred.” The 1250 B.C.E. date is also consistent with an analysis based on the Merenptah Stele, as well as dates associated with the settlement of the hill country of central Canaan, see the discussion in the section of the essay “Monotheism” titled Origins of the Yahweh-only religion after the Patriarchal Period.

[69] With so many projects, there would be great need for workers. It may be for this reason that Pharaoh did not want the Hebrew slaves to leave, he needed them as workers. There is biblical precedent for a Pharaoh refusing to allow a worker to leave: Pharaoh initially refused to allow Joseph to leave to bury his father. Pharoah was afraid that Joseph would decide not to return and take the Hebrew slaves with him thereby depriving Pharaoh of all those workers.

^[70] See A Brief  History Of Israel by Bernard Reich (New York, NY, Checkmark Books, 2008, paperback) pg 319.

[71] Perhaps the “curse” was broken at the fourth generation by Moses when he began to take the instructions which God had charged and impressed them upon the children in Egypt. Viewed through the lens of Ex 20:5, Deut 6:5-7 and the events reported in Exodus leading up to the exodus from Egypt, it seems that slavery and exile can be defeated by returning to the teachings and commandments of God, even if the children have been “away” for many years and generations.

[72] See, also, Biblical Archaeology Review 20:5, September/October 1994,” Exodus Itinerary Confirmed by Egyptian Evidence” By Charles Krahmalkov.

[73] See, also Biblical Archaeology Review 11:4, July/August 1985, “The Southern Sinai Exodus Route in Ecological Perspective” By Aviram Perevolotsky and Israel Finkelstein, which proposes an ecological explanation for the pattern of monastic settlement in southern Sinai which, in turn, accounts for the identification of Mt. Sinai and numerous other “Biblical” sites in the area.

[74] The rivers of this period might include the famous Pishon River identified in Gen 2:11 as being the Kuwait River, which would imply an extraordinary memory on the part of the Biblical authors since that river dried up sometime between about 3500 and 2000 B.C.E. However, such a date fits in with the writing of the Exodus story.

Flooding of rivers would also fit in with the above-discussed plague analysis associated with flooding of the Nile as well as other rivers associated with the Nile.

[75] Roberts, Rodger. The Fundamental Question: An Investigation into the Historical Origins of the Bible. Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Meshwesh, 2013. Print. Pages 153-170.

[76] A large group of Semitic people were expelled after befoming powerfrul in the Nile Delta area; the capital of this area was at Avaris which was located where the city Pi-Ramesses was built by slaves, which the Bible states were Hebrew slaves; Josephus claims this expulsion was the Exodus.

[77] Roberts identifies the following differences: the Hyksos people ere not Yahwists, or even monotheists (but see the essay on Monotheism in which it is argued that the people entering the Promised Land were not monotheists, but converted to Monotheism after they lived in the land where the indigenous population was already monotheists); these people did not appear to have been enslaved (but, see the discussion of slavery in this essay); their escape route does not appear to be the same as the escape route proposed in the Bible; following the expulsion, the Egyptians established firm control over Canaan for the next 400 years which would be inconsistent with the Biblical account; the dates are inconsistent with dates for the later kings.

[78] “Redating Exodus,” Biblical Archaeology Review 13:5, September/October 1987

[79] Basedon historical and archeological evidence, there is basis for assuming that the people who are the subject of the story of Exodus were mainly Egyptian-speaking Libu (Livu) people who lived in the Nile Delta during the 8^th century B.C.E. and whose ancestors came from Libya.

^[80] Could this be the source of the Haggadah statement: “In every generation one is required to see oneself as if he had gone out of Egypt…”? A humorous take on this is found in For This We Left Egypt?, a Haggadah by Dave Barry, Alan Zweibel and Adam Mansbach, Flatiron Books (New York, 2017).

[81] An alternative explanation of the great number of 600,000 men coming from the original seventy could be a miracle from God since God had promised Abraham in Gen 12:2 at the very first encounter between God and Abram: “I will make of you a great nation,…” And this is merely the fulfillment of that promise. If this is the case, then perhaps the fulfillment of God’s promise was a double-edged sword because it was the great number of people that frightened Pharaoh and gave rise to the actions of infanticide that so oppressed the very people who were blessed with fulfillment of the promise.

^[82] However, there is much doubt as to the factual authenticity of the Book of Joshua. For example, the archaeological record does not correspond to the events recounted in this book because there is not a complete destruction of major Canaanite cities of that time period, Canaanite culture does not appear to have been replaced by another culture, a culture which would indicate some roots in Egypt, an indication that Canaanite people moved about rather than were displaced or destroyed via conquest. The Book of Joshua alleges a complete conquest, yet archeological evidence does not seem to support this claim.

^[83] An interesting side note to Moses’s marriage to Zipporah: both Moses and Zipporah are descendants of a priestly line. This makes Moses doubly-priest worthy. Lucky for Moses that Zipporah was a member of a priestly family because she knew exactly what to do to save Moses by circumcising their son (Ex 4:24-26). Had she failed, perhaps God would have carried out His intention to kill Moses.

[84] See the section “The Wrestling Match” in the “Jacob, Esau – Birthright and Blessings” essay.